If There's One Thing I'm Not...

...It's modest.
I'm little miss spotlight, center-stage, Aries-and-damn-proud-of-it-too, what-you-gotta-problem-with-me-say-it-to-my face, real wild child. *out of breath*
But when someone says you gotta work on your attitude...

Situation #1:
The standard Friend A, Friend B, Friend C. A is friends with C, but not B. B is also friends with A, but not C. C talks shit about B behind B's back-- to A. I'm B, my best friend is A, and this guy I call "Eric* of the Hair" (* I did change his name... I'm not that sadistic) is C. Now, My friend's b'day is coming up, and I don't want to ruin it. Hell, I hate my cousins, but I still put on a mask and act nice around them. I can pull it off at her party too, yes? Weirdness is, I don't know why I don't like this guy. He bugs me, he's immature, sure, but I used to be crushing on him! Elch! Why do people fight and then forget what they fought for?

Situation #2: (see previous entry)
I really don't feel like getting beaten into a bloody pulp again just because I've got a 'tude. Besides, 9 times outta 10, I don't even know I do.

There's this saying: Once you accept who you are, you can try to change. But then, I've never really liked myself. I've sorta always grown up with the "someone's better than me"/"why bother reaching for the stars if you land in the gutter anyways?"/"nobody likes me, everybody hates me" thing going on. That's why I am a self-proclaimed loner. I work better alone, and several of my so-called friends are just like me: outcasts in their own little respects, the oddballs in the group. None of us accepted, but all as one. Kinda like an oversized Musketeer Group.

So, I "proudly" call myself a skinny little bitch, but I'm really wondering if I am. I don't think I *need* to be likable, but I know that if I keep being all depressing/loner-ish/angsty/whatever, I'll end up on Prozac and be forced to work in groups all the time.

Life has shown me that there is no such thing as an easy way out, or shortcuts. No backtracking, this train is one-way. But if you want to change, is sort of like taking a few steps backwards. Pause, lose a turn, rethink the mistake you made and do-over. Can I do that?

I got accepted into this summer program (which, thus far, has caused me nothing but trouble). Apparently, I got in because I cried at the interview. I opened up. But afterwards, I didn't have a clue as to what I did or said that got me in. I didn't care much, either. At this big dinner, alums of the program were saying the whole thing was geared towards "underprivileged" kids, and while I am aware that such kids exist, I never thought of myself as one. I mean, with people calling you a spoiled rotten brat...

In the long run, I am stuck between a rock and a hard place, with myself saying, why the hell should I change for others? The little bookworm on my head says, because in the real world, acting like a bitch doesn't cut it. Then she whacks me on the head with a squeaky mallet. There's the one that just goes 'eh' and lets life keep flowing, and the little angel who says, 'maybe you should give it a try... you never know what blessings you may get...'

So... *sigh* If there's anything I'm not... it's decisive.

If...

Question: If you could go back in time, and change one event, one decision that you made, only, you couldn't go back to your "real" time no matter how far in the future it was, and you would HAVE to remember your old life... would you? Where would you go, and what decision would you change?

Time fascinates me. Time travel, shows like Sliders, Quantum Leap, and Star Trek are the best in my book. The way I see time is like this: Time is sort of like a never-ending tree. It begins in one place, continues endlessly in one direction until... until something change the course of all life. Sentience. A thought, an idea. Change. A branch grows. People emerge from hunters and gatherers, turn into farmers, merchants... life grows and expands.

We are where we are now. The present. Decisions are made, every second, every day. With every word you say, the tone and attitude in which you say it, and with the responses to questions.
Yes or No. Black or White. Dark or Light. Or some more complicated decisions. Some people have to choose whether to take a loved one off of life support and have them die in peace, or let them suffer in pain, longer.

Perhaps it is more than a choice of two. Choosing between more things makes the final decision all the more difficult. Then, I was faced with this question, and it has plagued me to this day, when I felt the most inspired to write about it.

Maybe I'm being over-worldly and a bit too eloquent, seeing as I normally rant, rave, or whine, but this is something I've really put thought into.

A lot of things have happened in my life in the past several years. My life has not been uneventful or boring. But you know that the tiniest detail can change an entire future.

If someone traveled to the future to acquire technology that had not yet been invented, then "invented" it themselves, would the technology simply disappear, or destroy both times, seeing as it never could have gotten there without the original inventor in the first place? Hence time paradoxes.

Ok. Hypothetical situation. I'm given the power to go back in time. A one-way trip, to any point, right down to the exact millisecond. The mind of my present self is transferred into the mind of my past self, and stays there. If I go back to a time when I am five, I have the mind of a sixteen year old. Once I reach sixteen again, I begin to live life again.

When would I go back?
Perhaps to change the chance I never took.
Perhaps to see if that guy really *did* like me.
To ace that exam, transfer out of that class, avoid that beating. To be myself, what people wanted, to be the best. To experience new things...
or to cheat Death.

I'll say now that I don't really have much of a belief in religion. There have been times when I have prayed, and used the cross as my amen sign, but I do not believe in Christ. I don't want to get into religious issues here, but is it wrong to wish you could take back someone's death?

It would inevitably also change the events after that. Perhaps my uncle, aunt, and grandmother wouldn't die as well. But because a future where my sister-- the one person I want the most to be here now-- is alive is new and unknown to me, would I be able to cope, the mind of a sixteen year old in an eleven year old body?
What would I do to prevent my sister from going on the hiking trip to the cliffs that took her to her death? What could I say or do to bring her back?

I used to wish to become something extraordinary. Like, in the Joy Luck Club, where the goose became a swan-- something more than what was hoped for.

In my mind, that was someone who was fantastically beautiful, with a wonderful personality, telepathy, superpowers, super strength, anything. If I could go back in time and have any of those, I believe that I could do *something* to save my sister.

But... "Wake Up And Smell The Reality." Not now, maybe not ever, will time travel exist in that manner. The world would collapse in on itself. But the idea is still intriguing, no? So, believing that I could, but with the restriction that only I know of my true future, with no kind of powers... what would I do to change it?

Could I?

Would you?