What if now?

It's taken me a while to think on when and where I would go, how and why I would alter history- either personal or worldly. Sitting here at my dirty kitchen table, covered in candy wrappers from valentines day and dishes from my husband's breakfast, staring down at the black and white backlit keys of my free laptop given from some pandemic resource or other, thinking of all of the moments in my life that I regret or wish I could have done differently in some way or another. Would it have been that time in fifth grade, when I got in trouble for writing "this is Adam"- the name of my crush- next to an ugly doodle in some woe-is-me preteen book because I thought that teasing your love interest was the way to gain their affections?

Maybe the time in 2008 when I slapped my older brother across the face because he was calling me ugly words in an even uglier tone of voice. That was one of the last interactions I remember having with him before he ran away a few short months later and never returned. I think he's incarcerated somewhere in the north-east now- or maybe the mid-north if that's even a place. If I hadn't have slapped him would he have decided to stay home? If I hadn't written a boy's name in some shitty form of cursive, would he still have bullied me on the bus three years later- hitting me in the head with a metal belt buckle and getting the school police involved?

Perhaps it would be the time that I wrote and illustrated a book for my youngest brother and proudly shared it with my dad, only to be told I could have done better. There was the time I put my self harm on display to my peers instead of just asking for the help that I so desperately needed but was too afraid to receive. Skip ahead three or four years, there was the time I decided it was a great idea to go to a boy's house and consequently get assaulted because "no" was too hard of a word to utter when drugged. The following suicide attempt could be a great contender as well, it led to years of acting out sexually and my parent's divorce after all.

Yes, any of these periods of time would be perfect to go back to, to change or alter or even completely avoid. But who would I be if I chose that power? Would I still be the sleep deprived but happy mother and wife sitting here at our first family dinner table, with memories of glitter glue and paint etched into it's wood? Would I have the memory of receiving SweetTarts chewy rope candy from the children at work, snacking on them as I reminisce on the days where Covid-19 forced me to work from home? Recording circle time videos for eight amazing toddlers on this very same computer I was lucky enough to receive free of pay?

It's taken me a while to think on when and where I would go, how and why I would alter history- either personal or worldly. The conclusion I have come to seems to be the simplest yet most complex I could have reached. I simply wouldn't, because changing history would be changing who I am today. And despite the hardships I've endured, the bullying, the rape, the near death nightmares, I am proud of who and where I am today.

There is nothing I would change, nothing I would erase.

There is no history worth rewriting that could make the "what if's" of yesterday worth the "and now's" of today.