You Wake Up in the 1990's...

A Question I Read on Another Social Media Platform

I was doom scrolling earlier, as one does, and ran across this interesting question. Usually, I don’t bother with such comments on this particular platform, but something itched deep down, almost like a deep burning sensation in my bones, urging me, no, pleading with me. I must respond to this. Okay, universe. I’ll bite. Perhaps there is something to unpack here. Anyway, the question was something like the following (I’m paraphrasing it, because I’m too tired to go find it again).

If you woke up tomorrow morning, back in the 1990’s— any time in during the 90s, realizing that the last 35 years was nothing more than a dream, what would you do?

To be honest, I sat in solitude for a good five minutes while I contemplated exactly what day I would wake up on, and after a fair bit of introspection, and perhaps some reflection upon my life to date, I came up with an answer. But first, I had to write a proper introduction. It went something like this:

My life went from an ordinary crappy life as a kid in 1989 to utter shit during the 1990’s. You see, 1989 was the year my step-mother, otherwise known as the Wicked Witch of the Who-the-Fuck-Cares-Anyway married my father. December 27, 1989 changed my life. I went from being the miracle child to an abomination. My father told me one day the only reason he married her was “because the sex is good and she knows how to cook, and if you can’t like her, then I’ll send you off somewhere.” (He may have said that last part, I don’t really remember all that well, I was like 12 or 13 at the time.) And as for my step-mother…

First she sent me to summer camp in nowhere, Wisconsin. But I guess I had too much fun there, because the following year, I went to a Baptist boarding school in Buttfuck, Egypt, Tennessee. There was nothing for 45 minutes in any direction. It felt like a penal colony, and yes, they still had punishments that involved a wooden paddle with holes drilled into it. It was there that I experienced my first fist fight. I lost. I remember, there was a huge deal because one kid actually hung himself. When my dad came down to pick me up, he told me in the car that I’ll “never be coming back to this place— it’s for juvenile delinquents”. I’m glad he saw the three months of horror I survived in only ten minutes from the sanctuary of his drivers seat, because my entire high school career changed from that decision.

Each year during the summer break, while my peers were doing whatever they got to enjoy, I was studying in one form of summer school or another. My step-mother’s drive to push me out of the house was my additional stress to over-perform. I graduated from high school in three years. The best time of your life! Squandered. And in those three years, not one date, and friends whom have long since forgotten about me.

She (my step-mother), harassed me into joining the Air Force. “It’s the only way you’ll get into college.” And the way she said it, burns like acid searing bare skin. Nothing I could ever do was close enough to be good. Always the failure, I was. I looked forward to my new life in the military, but truth be told, I barely passed. In fact, the only reason I made it through Basic Training was because of my Flight (the people you slept with in a big dormitory during Basic Training). I can’t be proud of accomplishing that, because I was literally carried through. And I know it. I should have failed. Maybe my life would have turned out differently had the truth prevailed.

Anyway, to cut a very long and boring story short, my time in the military wasn’t a very good one. And I wasn’t a very good soldier either. I can tell you, that I’m no threat to anybody, because I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn if my life depended on it. (Ask my Training Instructor about the fact that my target had two holes in it, while my neighbor had 78. A standard magazine for an M-16 holds 40 shots.) As I was saying, I sucked at being military brat, and my life fell down a dark pit early on. I’m no stranger to incarceration. As as hard as I try to be a good girl, I’m just not good enough. Ever.

So to answer the question above, after taking a brief stroll down this yucky memory… lane, thing. I’d choose to wake up in 1995, January 31, and I’d kill myself instead. Because living as somebody unwanted is truly an undesirable curse. … Maybe it’s a good think time travel doesn’t exist. Because I’ll never have to worry about ever waking up again on January 31, 1995.