Superpowers

This morning, my friend and I were discussing which super power we'd want to possess (I guess kind of like on Heroes, except I don't watch that show so I don't really know what he was talking about). At first I chose invisibility, but then I decided I'm already pretty good at throwing on the figurative invisibility cloak. What purpose would being literally invisible serve, other than to fulfill a couple of voyeuristic fantasies? Meh. That's why God made webcams and the internet.

Then I thought I might like to fly, but since I don't live in Chicago anymore and the ability to fly over traffic is useless in Buffalo (unless you're headed downtown on Delaware and hit the light at Hertel, at which point it might come in handy), I switched to the ability to time travel. Though our discussion was brief, it stayed with me and got me thinking about what things I would change if I could go back in time.

There's a lot I wouldn't change, despite the fact that it was bad. Why? Because, as Senor Rubio, my friend Gus' late dad, used to say, "No hay malo que no viene para bueno" - There is no bad that does not come for good. I would still make a lot of the same mistakes, date many of the same bad people, and consume some of the bad things I ingested. What I would change, however, would be my opinion of myself.

If I could travel back, say, 20 or 25 years, I would ignore the people in my life who made me feel like shit and made me second-guess myself all the time. I would take better care of myself and be more selfish. I'd learn how to say "No" more often and walk away from things and people that were no good for me. I'd know that when a person no longer wished to be in my company I'd accept it as life and move on. I wouldn't take everything so personally. I'd realize that the definition of insanity is, indeed, doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results, and in doing so I could prevent myself from making a lot of the same mistakes. I'd eat fewer twinkies. I'd lose my extra fat cells before puberty, and I'd lose them because I'd love myself enough to want to be rid of them, and not because I was trying to please someone else. I would control my temper better. I wouldn't start smoking. I'd hang out with more nerds and care less what the cool kids thought of me. I'd study more, and not just because I was trying to not be grounded for an entire semester. I'd think more and talk less. I'd look in the mirror and like what I saw, even if the boys on the bus barked at me. I'd save my Pigs in Space lunchbox and sell it for a small fortune on eBay in 25 years. I'd listen when my elders tell me time goes too quickly. I'd enjoy the present, forget the past, and not worry so much about the future.

The only thing, though, is that I guess on Heroes, the dude who time travels continues to age in "real time" so it's different. Even still, now that I've gotten a chance to look at what I would have done 25 years ago, I realize that I still have time to do all that stuff - and then when I'm 60, I won't be writing the same post over again. Because that, by definition, would be insane.