Time machines

If I could go back in time, I'd wave at Freckleface as the U-Haul pulled out of our gravel driveway in the Keys, I'd walk back inside to the kitchen table and face my friend Amy and I'd cry. And tell her I wasn't leaving to follow him up north.

Except I cried and left.

If I could go back, I'd bitch slap myself.

And then I'd point out that life is good. That you've got your own place. A job you like. A nice pay check. Friends. And that giving that up in order to "share it" with a guy isn't just taking a chance on romance. It isn't just taking a stab at starting a life with some other person. It's putting your entire self on the line.

And there's a good chance you could be left dangling.

Probably I wouldn't listen to myself, I never considered that when I moved I might not find a job right away. I might not have money in the bank. I might not be able to pay my bills. I might have to chose between dog food and people food. I might get dumped and find myself suddenly dead-broke and homeless.

I figured if it didn't work out, I'd shrug it off the way I've always done.

I keep having these, panic attacks I guess, more like crying jags - where I'm overwhelmed with the urge to throw a temper tantrum. I want to scream and yell that it isn't fair. That I gave up everything and that fucker could have at least waited until I was in a stable financial position to give me the axe.

I want to throw a cosmo at all those women that write for magazines and promise if you suck a lot of pee pee and cook dinner, he'll love you forever. He won't. He'll decide you don't have enough in common, probably because he doesn't like to cook or suck dick.

I want to grab the threads of time and undo my life. I want to unspool it all. I want to go back to high school and take that ring and agree to be cherished. And loved. And protected.

I want not to feel so utterly grown up in the knowledge that you can do everything right and still get it wrong.

I want to be fake-jaded. I want not to feel the cynicism that lines my spine. I want to go back to when being jaded seemed like a romantic notion. To when I thought that if I followed all the advice girly magazines bestow and became a 'domestic godess,' it couldn't fail. That it was a sure thing.

I want not to have been so confident in my cozy, wonderful life, that I thought some one else wanted to share in it.

I want to get into a time machine and bitch slap myself.