Advice for My Teenage Self: A Time Travel Perspective

The trouble with some of these writing prompts is that these are the things I’d do in my VA writing group. Some of these prompts are the kind that hold a mirror up to you and force you to look at things in your past.

Well, here goes.

I knocked on the door of Doc Brown’s garage and asked him if I could borrow the DeLorean. The old codger actually gave me the keys and told me to have it back in two minutes and to make sure I filled it up. Doesn’t sound like a lot of time, but when you have a time machine, two minutes is plenty of time.

So, I engage the time circuits, gun it up to 88 miles an hour, and emerge in La Jara, Colorado, 1974.

God, nothing’s changed. My old school is still there. In my timeline, not long ago before I boarded the time machine, the building had been bulldozed flat.

And there I am. Tall, skinny as a rail. I weighed 170 pounds when I started college. And those sideburns! Who did I think I was? Elvis? And dressed from head to toe in black. Black turtleneck. Black pants. Black boots. Most of my peers rebelled by growing afros or adopting a vaguely hippie dress code.

No, I had to go goth before goth had even been invented. What can I say? I was a weird kid!

So, what would I have told this kid?

I’d have sat him down and said, “Grow the hell up! Pursue your dreams. Go to the distant school. Enlist early. figure out what you want to do with life. And above all, remember that God spoke to Balaam out of his ass, and he’s been using asses ever since! So, don’t think you’re anything special with what you have to say.”

Then I would have promptly vanished from existence because if he’d have listened and changed the course of the future, my present me would never have existed.

So, note to past self. “Pay no mind to the old guy in the futuristic car. You’re going to do amazing things. You’re going to learn from it. you’re going to meet an amazing girl, and she’ll be the Love of your Life. And you’ll have an amazing family. And you’ll have a first-class relationship with God.

“The old guy hasn’t a clue what’s he talking about.

“Everything is going to work out exactly the way it should.”

Have fun!