Do-over

Lets for a few moments believe in reincarnation.  You’re about to be reborn and are required to drink from Lethe, the river of forgetfulness.  No one is looking, so you spit the water out and reenter the world knowing everything you knew when you left. 

The important thing about fantasy is to control it and not let it control you.  Of course, if you came into the world with adult consciousness, you’d go mad from boredom the first year. You’d get A’s in grade school, but that would drive you nuts too. 

Since I’m in charge of the fantasy, I’ll fast forward to the seventh grade.  I want to smack that bully.  I may have to take some lumps, but I know now I can endure them, and I’ll go after him every time he starts in on me.  He’ll get tired of it and torment someone else.  I’ll develop a reputation for going a little crazy when provoked. 

That dragon of a principal even has some of the teachers scared of her, but what can she really do?  If she gives me a month of detention, I’ll finally get started on War and Peace.

I know I’ve learned a lot of things that will come in handy in my new life, but there’s a danger that when I avoid my old mistakes, I’ll make new ones.  Acting like a seventy-year-old when I'm twenty-one may not endear me to young women.  I’ll talk less about myself, and be more interested in their lives, but I may end up seeming like a great uncle to whom they’ll be nice until he decides he wants to kiss them.    

My wisdom is the wisdom of the old. I’ve seen a lot of bad things happen in my life, and it has taught me to be careful – maybe too careful.  There’s no one more boring than a stuffy twenty-something.

It seems the fantasy is getting out of hand again.  The pretty girl, for whom I brought flowers and listened to her hopes and dreams, just went off with some narcissistic moron on a motorcycle.  I’m beginning to think life isn’t meant to be relived knowing what you know now.  It may just be better to swallow the waters of forgetfulness and muddle through.