If I Could Turn Back Time

Right at the beginning of one of my most favourite movies ever — The Curious Case of Benjamin Button — there is an anecdote about a clock made by Mr Gateau, a clockmaker who was blind from birth and lost his only son in World War I. He had been contracted to make the clock for a railway station in 1918, but built it to run backwards as a memorial to all those who lost their sons the war. He wanted to turn back time, but of course, couldn’t. I rewatched the movie recently, and was struck by how philosophically time is presented in the film. Of course, there’s the obvious study of the impact of time — Benjamin was born old, and “ages” in reverse. Each year he gets progressively younger until he dies as a baby, with dementia, while those around him age normally.

Underpinning the film is the idea that age is relative. Death is not negotiable, and the only thing that really matters are the experiences — and all that that entails — comprising this thing called life. It’s stating the obvious though, to say that some of my experiences have been less than desirable. Other experiences have been a joy. I’m convinced that luck has a lot to do with how one’s life has turned out, and that we don’t realise how lucky — or unlucky — we’ve been until after the fact. But what if we could, like Mr Gateau wanted, turn back time? What if we had that power? How would we use it? What would we do with it? Who would we help and who would we hinder? What would we, or could we, change?

If I could turn back time…

I’d have studied to become a lawyer when I first when to university in 1989. I would have built a life advocating for others who, for whatever reason, could not advocate for themselves. The drive to speak up in the face of injustice and unfairness, either for myself or others, has been my undoing and my making. Thirty-five years ago, and armed with a law degree, I would have been unstoppable.

If I could turn back time…

I’d have chased the $3000 I lent to a part-time lover in the early 1980s and never got back because chasing it back became too difficult and awkward. That money was a superannuation payout from my first job and I could have used it to pay for the deposit on a home, overseas travel or invested it in Apple or Yahoo shares. Instead, when that lover faded away, so did my money. I have never lent money to anyone since.

If I could turn back time…

I’d ignore the persistent gnawing deep in my being urging me to be a mother, forged in the complicated dismothering of my own mother. Motherhood, for me, has been an empty, fraught experience characterised and underscored by a continuous cycle of quasi-betrayal that I could never have anticipated. Unconditional love, it turns out, has conditions — especially when it’s packaged up in unresolved, trans-generational trauma.

If I could turn back time…

I would have left Vietnam at the first sign of near-death trouble, which was extreme, dangerous and reckless and one that I forgivingly and stupidly downplayed. Maybe then, some three years later — because of the choices I made based on my donning of rose-coloured glasses, a say-yes-to-anything-attitude and foolish naivete — I would not have been in a country that was not mine, waiting, waiting, waiting until I could return to the land from whence I came.

If I could turn back time…

I would be deeply suspicious of anyone I’m not related to using the word family to describe our friendship. I would watch for the divergent, tell-tale signs of bravado and an unquenchable thirst for pity and steer clear. Family, as much as I desired to belong to one, has not been a situation that enhances my emotional well-being or shelters me from the battering, relentless waves of life.

If I could turn back time…

I’d tell my friend that it wasn’t the stress and overwork that was making him feel so ill and awful. Instead of nodding sympathetically and commiserating with glib solidarity, I would have urged him to see a doctor. Maybe then, he wouldn’t have died of a curable cancer less than a year later, aged 56, painfully aware that he still had a lot more living to do.

If I could turn back time…

I’d tell the 13 year old boy with the cheeky sense of humour and the spirited twinkle in his eye — and who happened to be a student in my Year 8 English class — to watch his back in 2016. I would have urged him to think about the decisions and choices he was making as a young man and to stay away from drugs. Maybe then, he wouldn’t be missing, presumed dead, some 20 years later.

If I could turn back time…

I’d tell my building facilities manager — who I’d never actually dealt with in person, only via email or phone — to take that overseas trip before she retired. I would tell her that if she waited until she retired, she would have a brain aneurysm not long after she gave up work and would pass away within six months. Maybe then she would see the world she so longed to travel, the world she put off seeing because work was always her number one priority.

If I could turn back time…

I’d tell the woman that the handsome Vietnamese man she was dating who seemed trustworthy, was, in fact, not. I would tell her to ignore his words about destiny and his kind, thoughtful and reliable actions and look at his patterns of behaviour. I would tell her that she should not have ignored her instincts because her body knew exactly how toxic he was. Maybe then, she (me) wouldn’t have ended up with acute liver failure that took six months to fix.

If I could turn back time…

I’d tell the young girl who loved stories to turn her love for the written word into being a writer. I would tell her that she herself is a story-teller and can spin words into wonderful tales, and tell awesome real life stories that people love. Maybe then she would have floundered less in this world, and been clear about the direction she should have always taken. It’s where she’s ended up anyway, and it would have saved her (me) a whole lot of time.

If I could turn back time…

I would tell my sister not to marry the nice, caring, attentive man whose neediness camouflaged an alcohol problem. I would tell her that his issues will not improve with marriage, and will, in fact, get worse. She will be controlled by his passive aggression and alcoholism and will lose herself keeping the peace. Maybe then she wouldn’t be heading into middle age unhappy and depressed and wondering if she can escape.

If I could turn back time…

I would have urged that same sister not to keep the secret about my daughter that she thought was worth keeping, if only because carrying that burden was hard. She thought she was protecting me, but it damaged us. Not as much damage, though, as the conversation that went from me to my sister to her daughter to my daughter, who used it as evidence I was a terrible mother. I don’t know how to repair the relationship with my sister from that.

If I could turn back time…

I would have urged my daughter to play the field with boyfriends. Instead, I was happy that she’d met a nice boy from a nice family when she was 16 because my own mother did not want my sister and I to have boyfriends, however nice, when we were teenagers. I wanted my daughter to experience something I did not when I was her age. My daughter married this nice boy from the nice family, who turned out to be not so nice. To me, anyway.

If I could turn back time…

I would tell the bubbly girl who rescued animals and whose smile lit up a room not to ride her bike to work that morning. Maybe then she would have made it, instead of being hit by a car whose driver couldn’t see her in the morning fog. I would tell the other bubbly girl who I hadn’t seen for thirty years to wait for her Uber after the wedding reception, or call another one, and not walk along the poorly lit highway at night. Maybe then, she too, would have made it home.

If I could turn back time…

I would tell my friend of 30 years that she isn’t responsible for the death of her mother, and to let the guilt go. I would warn her not to marry the charming, handsome, glib man she met online who would break her heart more than any other man. Maybe then should wouldn’t have been devastated by his betrayal just six short years after she said I do, and be forced to rebuild her life when she should be easing into retirement. I would also have let this friend go decades earlier because, in the end, she wasn’t a friend.

If I could turn back time…

I would not have listened to the false friend who advised me that starting a company in Vietnam would solve my visa issues. Maybe then I wouldn’t have swapped one set of complicated problems for another set of even more complicated problems that caused me nothing but anxiety and worry and stress. Instead, I would have invested in the social enterprise start-up that I volunteered for and looked like it wouldn’t make it past the first year. It’s still going.

If I could turn back time…

I would realise that my life is rich and interesting enough without a partner, and that in fact, seeking out romantic attachments and entanglements is not something that aids and abets my emotional, physical and spiritual health. Maybe then I wouldn’t have wasted all that time and all that I am chasing an impossible dream of acceptance and love and validation. The drama that just isn’t worth it, but the price of peace is travelling life without a companion.

If you could turn back time…

What would you change?

About the #12Essays2024 Challenge

I haven’t given my blog much love or attention over the last couple of years. I wasn’t in the headspace to write, at least not the personal essays I’m known for. But in the words of George Costanza: I’m back, baby. I’ve made a commitment to write one essay a month in 2024 — a slimmed down version of the #26Essays2017 challenge I set for myself in the first year I was in Vietnam. I will be experimenting with structure and form, so you might see some weird stuff. Please stick with me. Some essays will be short, and others will be split into parts because they are long. Maybe I’ll end up publishing them into a collection. Who knows?

Image credit Tomasz Mikołajczyk from Pixabay

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