Is there an age or year of your life you would re-live?

For the most part, I’m perfectly happy with the life that I’ve led up to this year and this moment in time.

Naturally, if you follow my blog, you will know that my father passed away when I was just 17. My first thought, when contemplating today’s prompt was to go back in time to the year before that event occurred. Who wouldn’t want to warn a loved one of something catastrophic in their near future that would spell the end of their life?

But, of course, there is what some call the “Butterfly Effect“, the phenomenon whereby a minute localized change in a complex system can have large effects elsewhere, in this case the future.

I believe in the spirit of destiny, in that what is to be, will be. Factoring in that concept, along with the butterfly effect, who’s to say that my father would’ve believed me? Who’s to say that instead of a heart attack, a tragic car accident wouldn’t have taken his life far too soon as well? Could events on that alternate timeline leave me homeless or something worse? Could harm come to many rather than few? Although I love my Dad with everything I am, what would I do?

To answer the question of if there is an age or a year of my life that I’d like to travel back to and relive, part of my answer can be found in the lyrics of Garth Brooks’ 1990 single, “The Dance”:

And now I’m glad I didn’t know
The way it all would end
The way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance
I could have missed the pain
But I’d have had to miss the dance

Garth Brooks (songwriter Tony Arata)

As much as my heart yearns to change the past, my head knows things happen for a reason – one that only God knows. I’m good with that.