*** Time Travel ***
I'm wondering what the present day might have held if all those years I'd have made some very different decisions with my life. What if the very moment certain opportunities had exposed themselves I'd have dared to go in completely opposite direction to the road I've travelled otherwise?
I already know the answer(s)...
When the 17 year old me could have just said what he meant -- when the overweight, boisterous party killjoy Diane Celery proposed drunkenly and very specifically that she come back to mine and show me how good she was in bed -- he said the complete opposite.
Like an idiot, he cared more about his dick and the size of Diane's tits when he should have cared more about his reputation and the potential bunny boiling that would and did in fact ensue.
If I'd just said no, I'd have saved myself the embarrassment and wouldn't have had to find out the hard way that the gobby little slapper was about as appetising to my sexual appetite as was going down on a dead beached whale!
When the 19 year old me could have just kept his mouth shut when he fell head over heels for his college tutor -- even though she clearly never saw him that way or in any other way either -- he went and told her how he felt after college had ended and instead of his dreams coming true, he ended up dealing with a lot of embarrassment and heartache, all because he did not know when to quit. Had I shown restraint when it was needed, I probably wouldn't be so forcefully resigned as I am today in so many situations!
When the 26 year old me was faced with a clingy girlfriend that wound up in hospital getting her stomach pumped free of alcohol on the occasional nights I wanted to spend by myself -- a girl that was so tragically imbalanced by past events in her life to the point where she no longer saw what was least and most important to her -- I was too afraid to tell her that being with her was one of the most unpleasant and unnerving experiences in my life and that instead of hanging onto me for dear life, she ought to let go and go face her demons on her own two feet before deciding what she could fitfully class as "life!"
All starting with the first ever crush I had -- the history teacher Miss Patricia Williams -- I had made some bad decisions regarding what I felt love should ideally be or what my desires truly meant to me. I had gone in the opposite direction when logic meant to move simply forwards, I had swam against the current when I felt that the effort would pay off and I had gone with the flow when I was very potentially catastrophically heading for a waterfall. Where had I been going wrong since day one?
Trying to be a gentleman when nature urged I should have just been myself, maybe...
I know now that when we make mistakes, they're just the practical beginnings of a path not yet taken. Most of us strike lucky or take the boring route of following in someone else's footsteps, therefore never truly gaining their own independence the moment a simple mistake leads to the end of everything they know. But those of us who make those mistakes firsthand and then go back a second time will get it right. Practice doesn't make perfect but it does set you up for the odd winning streak.
I just go back in time occasionally and look to the day she asked me that question that led to the biggest losing streak in history. She doesn't know; never did and maybe never will. But she doesn't have to. I know where I went wrong and how I can put it right.
Miss Williams is sitting at her desk in one of those low-cut but long flowing floral summer dresses, a black woollen cardigan draped over her shoulders. We're in class and the silence is deafening. So deafening that Alison Walker's tittering and joking about the chewed-up paper spit-balls stuck in the back of Joanne Watkinson's hair might ordinarily be as audible as the sound of a pin dropping, but right now she might as well be just saying it out loud.
Miss Williams' eyes look up to her, her usually beautiful face currently looking like a storm that might lash out at any moment. The white beneath her eyes is exposed and somehow this makes her look deadly serious. Alison shuts up instantly.
Daniel Fitzsimmons has been at this school for five years and in all that time, he hasn't taken a day away from sniffing every three seconds through the nostrils of the snottiest nose in Britain. His face is miserable; he sniffs; he's every thinking girl's first ever wet dream; he sniffs; his dad runs his own business; he sniffs; the world is on his narrow shoulders; he sniffs; it took him half a fucking hour to gel and style his hair this morning before his mum drove him to school...
He sniffs!
'Oh for God's sake, Daniel,' Miss Williams whispers, dancing near the edge of her patience, and holds out a box of tissues, 'blow your nose,' to which Daniel responds by miserably getting up and taking a handful of them before sitting back down again. He sniffs once more. Miss Williams looks as if she's about to lose her temper. It stops.
The room is silent and without warning, she turns those two very tired looking eyes to me and I don't know why. She can't be mad at me for any reason... at least I hope not. I try a quick smile and to my surprise, she looks back down at the mass of paper before her, lying in a mess on her desk and although no smile is returned or even a hint of one is present, the storm is mellowed and the room brightens somehow.
She gets up from her seat, bringing the mess of paper with her. She is at the northwest corner by the window and I am at her far opposite in the southeast corner. She begins her overbearing and often frightening tyrade by slamming a set of papers down in front of the class's unruly ginger joker Ian O'Callaghan.
'F!!!' She says with force but doesn't shout and Ian is devastated although he should have seen it coming. Starting to pay attention only a few weeks before our exam coursework begins does not make up for years of lost interest.
'F!!!' She says, flinging a ragged looking pile of paper at Chris Callahan, who's sitting right beside Ian. 'Is it an Irish thing or is your stupidity becoming infectious, Ian?' she asks as a broad grin on the redhead's face widens at hearing his mate's grade. The room erupts into nervous laughter.
'Silence!' she shouts and the room is immediately void of all noise.
'E!!!' she continues, strolling across the room, and, 'E, E, F, D, D, F, D, D...'
'C, I'm impressed, Gemma, you've improved marvellously,' Miss Williams says and the tone of her voice brightens drastically. The class turns to look at Gemma Hornsby, making her feel uncomfortable but Miss Williams is there to stand by her. 'Don't anybody turn around and look at Gemma, nobody so far can afford to pay attention to anything but themselves with the way these grades are going,' she says sternly and faces off against the children sitting before her.
'I said TURN AROUND!' she speaks louder, just an inch away from yelling the roof in.
