It's an interesting place

Endings always make you reflect. On what you've done, on what you're doing, on what you're going to do, and on what you could've done differently. Unfortunately I've recently been confronted with the "what I could've done differently" phase, which for some reasons feels more plausible than the "what you're going to do" phase. It's bothersome because changing the past is as unattainable as predicting the future. Yet I manage to sit here every day and look back at past decisions and wonder, "Emily, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?"

As the big wide world of the future looms ahead of us, my friends and I have certainly gone off the deep end. Between the weird and often violent dreams, the excessive laziness, and the extreme insecurities that fester around us, I am surprised that we are still managing to lead fairly stable lives. Some have turned to compulsive habits like applying to too many jobs or joining the peace corps, while I have chosen to sit back and analyze every decision I've ever made. And where has it left me? Wishing for time travel.

If they invent time travel in my lifetime, will I go back and warn past Emily of her extremely bad judgement? Assuming that by that time I have lived out most of my adult life and I will know basically how the story ends, will I want to go back and change it knowing full well that happiness now could mean extreme unhappiness in the future? In such a sense, is time travel even ethical enough to pursue, considering it could very well end lives that are already in existence?

No. The truth of the matter is that my story has more pages left unwritten than I have even begun to live. In the words of Alanis Morisette, "Life has a funny, funny way of helping you out." And I can say with extreme honesty that I have looked at both sides of some decisions I have made and see that even though it was hard at the time, I am a better person because of that decision. But what if they invented time travel tomorrow, and I was able to go back and do it all better. Take the classes I wanted, make better grades, find friends I never knew existed and apologize to those I know I've hurt. It's so hard to see when you're on the inside looking out, and it's so hard to say that the unknown consequences of those decisions wouldn't seem worth it at this point.

There's a Rascal Flatts song that claims "I wouldn't change a thing. I'd walk right back through the rain. Back through every broken heart on the day that it was breaking. And I'd relive all the years, and be thankful for the tears I've cried with every stumble step that led to you and got me here." I can't imagine this being true. I can't imagine being in a place where all this pain and all these mistakes are worth it. But that somebody feels this way, gives me hope that one day, I will too.

Fortunately this is all irrelevant, and all I can say to past Emily is, how are we the same person? Why is it so much easier for me to logically see how you are making bad decisions? Fortunately, she'll never know how things turn out.