Time Travel for Beginners

When you move house there are certain arduous chores that need to be done. One of them is clearing out the attic space that has held your treasured possessions over the years. Gently gathering dust, they rest within the eves of your roof, willing you to come and find them at some point before they wither and wilt beyond recognition.

We did just that, we trawled through the small spaces behind the cardboard walls and found ‘stuff’. Stuff we hadn’t seen for years. And then I found packets of photographs and everything ground to a halt. There is something quite therapeutic about skimming through your life from glossy prints. There were photo’s ranging from family holidays to Butlins when I was very young to my misspent youth trying out perms, flares and the odd olden-day selfie. Sadly, back then you couldn’t delete any of them. You had to hand your film in and wait for what felt like DAYS to get the photo’s back. Once you open the first packet of precious captured moments there is no going back.

Watching my life in 7 x 4 print in the confines of our roof space, I contemplated what I would change? If I could travel back in time, where would I go? What would I do/say differently? Would I change my mind about getting my waist length hair cut pixie short when I was 7? Would I really not buy those bell-bottomed flares that used to soak up the rain every time I wore them, swishing and squelching around my ankles? Would I have changed the location of my first kiss? Would I have questioned him for going to the A-ha concert with someone else, they were just friends, he said? Would I really have thought that tying my hair up in a pony tail right on top of my head to resemble a pineapple was cool?  If you hadn’t caught that bus you would have missed your final exam or if you hadn’t tripped and fell flat on your face while your skirt became a tent, you wouldn’t have received a hand up from a passing guy who became your first love.

These are all menial things that no longer matter but they remind me of so much from my teenage years and I feel shaped my emotional state going forward. I loved my perm. I also think that Morten Harket is still lovely (can you believe Take On Me was back in 1985!), but don’t tell anyone.

Travelling through time is a dangerous occupation and should only be attempted by the brave and/or the silly. You have to remember that everything you change in the past will affect the outcome of your future. So, what would you change?

Be safe out there time travellers. As the great Doc Brown said “Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads!”