Finding Ninee » Sharing our parenting and special needs stories with heart and humor.

I Want To Be Younger But Keep All My Life Experiences

It’s not as much as I don’t like being as old as I am as it’s that I’m old to be the mom of my eight-year-old. Or, at least older than a lot of moms who have a kid that age. That’s why I want to be younger but keep all my life experiences.

I don’t want still-me-but-younger to have missed out on scuba diving, sky diving, or anything else I’ve lived. I just want to be younger while everything else stays the same.

For this week’s Finish the Sentence Friday’s prompt of sharing a previously published post, I’m using (but not re-publishing) one from 2014 about the time I was abducted by aliens and could change my past.

I Want To Be Younger But Keep All My Life Experiences

Last night, I was abducted by aliens.  One minute, I was peacefully slumbering in bed, and the next, I was standing outside on the sidewalk, looking at two creatures who obviously came from outer space.

I was strangely calm and wasn’t worried about being probed although I’ve watched enough movies to know I should’ve been.

They told me I was allowed to go back in time, and change one thing.

Aliens ask if you want to go back in time

Obviously, this was an amazing opportunity! I was excited!

I started thinking about the one thing that I’d like to go back in time and change.

All of the witty comebacks that I’d not thought of until it was too late filled my head. I thought about the skank in high school who stole my boyfriend right before my senior-year prom. A freshman girl, of all things.

I thought about when that slimebucket of a CEO told me I’d have a job in spite of upcoming layoffs, laid me off the following week along with the rest of the marketing department, and then asked if I wanted to write the company a check for $8,000 to buy out my stock options (I didn’t write the check, thank goodness, being as they declared bankruptcy a month later and probably knew they were going to when they asked for my money).

Anyway. These aliens. A free wish!

To go back in time and change something is pretty exciting. What would I change?

I thought about it. A lot. You can probably guess by the title what I wished for…

What to wish for revenge witty comebacks or youth

I’ve heard some people wear nightgowns.

Ultimately, I decided I’d like for my husband and me to both be 10 years younger than we are, while keeping everything else exactly the same, because I want my son Tucker to be Tucker, at his same age and same self.

I also want to have all the experiences that I have had.

I shared my idea with my new alien friends.

“I want to be younger but keep all my life experiences,” I said.

Brilliant, right?

But everything else is the same

At first, I thought they were confused, or were translating my words into their language or something.

They just kept looking at me.

Looking at me like I was a moron.

The aliens looked at me like I was a moron

Honestly, it got a bit uncomfortable, so I started wondering what I’d said.

I just want to be younger but keep all my life experiences.

While trying to decide whether I’d offended them and should offer them some Doritos or beer, I began to fantasize about being younger but keeping all my life experiences the same.

women at playground would suck it

I started thinking some more about how my new alien friends might pull this off.

Originally, I assumed they’d just condense Robert’s and my life experiences and make them happen at a more rapid speed, so that everything else – but our age – could remain the same.

Aliens have powers, after all.

But then I started thinking about it.

How they’d condense my life’s moments, and whether each moment being more brief might affect the outcomes and the lessons.

I asked how it would work, exactly.

How would this work exactly2

I started to get nervous.

And the smaller of the two aliens told me how it would work.

It cant work

More precisely, that it can’t work.

And I realized that it’s our experiences that make us who we are. Changing a single one of them creates a ripple throughout time and space, and that, in the end, it’s much too risky to change anything.

I woke up the next morning in my bed, and not on the sidewalk.

I gave thanks for my life, for its ups and downs, and realized that if there’s something I want to change, that I need to look at the tomorrows rather than the yesterdays.

I was extremely refreshed, although a tiny bit violated-feeling. Also? The Doritos and beer were missing.

if there

This has been a Finish the Sentence Friday post. I originally published this for Finish the Sentence on April 10, 2014 for “If I could go back in time… ” which was brought to you by Jennifer Schario Hicks and hosts Janine, Kate, Stephanie, and Me (Kristi).

Under the new Finish the Sentence Friday format, Kenya G. Johnson of Sporadically Yours and I host a different theme each week. On the fifth Friday of the month, we simply re-publish an old post, which I could’ve done with this but instead renamed it and wrote a new intro and changed a couple things (Tucker was 4-1/2 when I wrote this!).

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  • Emily - I remember this post from 2014! I remember your cute, little alien drawings too.:) I talk to my big dude a lot about looking towards the future, rather than dwelling on the past — or as you said, if there’s something you want to change, look at the tomorrows and not the yesterdays. Great advice!March 29, 2018 – 9:03 pmReplyCancel

    • Kristi Campbell - Thanks, Emily! This post makes me want to do more drawings again. They were fun. 🙂 Here’s to big dude and all of us looking toward the future. It’s too easy to dwell on what we think we might have messed up or what we should have done differently.March 30, 2018 – 8:03 pmReplyCancel

  • JT Walters - I think we all wished we were younger when we had our children except someone I knew that had a baby at 15 and let her Mom raise it.

    The most important thing is that you make the most of the time you have today. You really aren’t in control of your past, present or future but your attitude. That is it.

    I wish I had found love and married and not been a single Mom but that wasn’t up to me either. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t… and to some extent we are all single Moms even when married.

    I have today and tomorrow and that is it but the man upstairs is in charge of that.March 29, 2018 – 9:21 pmReplyCancel

    • Kristi Campbell - The 15 year old’s mom who raised her daughter’s baby probably wished she was younger raising the child. Agree that we need to make the most of today and I like the reminder that we can only control our attitude.March 30, 2018 – 8:10 pmReplyCancel

  • Pat B - This is such a great message to send out again, and again, and again.

    Now that I am at the ripe old age that I am, I have sometimes considered what my life would have been like if certain things hadn’t been done, if I’d taken a different path, etc., and you know what, I wouldn’t be me like I am now, nor have the family I have now, nor feel the love for them I feel now. I wouldn’t have learned from my mistakes, the ones I made then. It has been worth it, all of it.March 29, 2018 – 10:08 pmReplyCancel

    • Kristi Campbell - Thanks, Pat! I agree that it takes each of the paths we’ve chosen in life to be who we are now, to have learned from our mistakes, and all of that. I can’t imagine my family not being as it is so changing one thing, were I able to, becomes less appealing (even if I do sometimes wish I were younger!).March 30, 2018 – 8:12 pmReplyCancel

  • Kenya G. Johnson - That freshman girl was definitely a skank is she stole your SENIOR boyfriend!

    Awww I miss seeing your drawings on the regular. The old lady peeping was funny.

    I often think about going back in time and doing something right the first time. Or even being the me who I am now back in high school. I’d like to be more interested in the stuff that was taught to me, especially History. Maybe even math because I did actually understand it when it was for a college grade even though it wore off my the time I needed to understand elementary math homework.

    I’m going click back to see if I read this post once upon a time and see if I participated. I don’t remember.March 29, 2018 – 10:27 pmReplyCancel

    • Kristi Campbell - She was definitely a skank! Her name was (well, probably still is) Melissa. Ugh. I’ve thought about being now-me in high school. I definitely would have been more confident and not worried about some of the silly stuff I worried about. And I’d have made Gerry take me to prom! 😀 LOL to the math wearing off by the time we need it for elementary homework. I’ve had to Google so much just for third grade. Yikes.March 30, 2018 – 8:14 pmReplyCancel

  • Lizzi - I remember this from the first time around. I liked it then, and I like it now.
    I’m glad you’re you, and have had all the experiences that made you. I’m glad none got condensed. I kinda think you’re pretty wonderful as you are.March 30, 2018 – 5:05 pmReplyCancel

    • Kristi Campbell - Thanks, Lizzi! You’re too sweet, thinking I’m wonderful. You’re wonderful. I’m glad none of it got condensed either although the desire for youth and wrinkle-free faces is a billion-dollar industry so I guess it’s not just me! 😉March 30, 2018 – 8:15 pmReplyCancel

      • Lizzi - LOL! No. Not just you. Not by a long chalk! I am beginning to wish those things about myself… it’s difficult to see wrinkles as badges of honour.March 31, 2018 – 1:20 amReplyCancel

        • Kristi Campbell - Long chalk? Here we say “long shot.” Huh. One more weird thing of Brit vs. US language I guess. Wrinkles are HARD to see as badges of honor, although that’s what they are. F’real.April 2, 2018 – 10:03 pmReplyCancel

          • Lizzi - A long shot here is more of a specific thing – it’s (I guess) the achievement of an unlikely goal, whereas I think a long chalk has more to do with volume or number of things being big…making me want to know the origin now! Funny ole language. Gotta love a good nuance.
            (Badges of bad moisturising more like!)April 3, 2018 – 1:15 am

  • Nicole Audlee - This is the first time I read this. My husband and I were just talking about this the other day! I am 45 and my husband is 49 and we wished too to be 10 years younger. We have twin boys who are 4 and both are Autistic. I would not want to change a thing about them just like you said. Now reading your blog it changed my thought and prospective on this. We are where we need to be. Thank you for sharing.April 13, 2018 – 1:29 amReplyCancel

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