Image Courtesy of Kim Mobey Art
I am not sure now, where it is that I was reminded of this theory or concept... was it a chat with a loved one or a friend or a meme on the internet? Funnily enough that is actually relevant. Something so insignificant like scrolling my newsfeed on Instagram or Facebook quite possibly inspired this post: ergo, I would not be writing this post if I hadn't been pondering the concept, and I wouldn't be pondering the concept if I hadn't even reminded of it.
Although time travel has tantalized me since I was a child, with Back to the Future, and Ground Hog Day being movies of interest in the Genre. Star Trek too. My first experience or memory of The Butterfly effect itself though was in the unforgetting disturbing and yet poetically beautiful movie, The Butterfly Effect (2004) Starring Ashton Kutcher and Amy Smart
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It was one of those movies you maybe see once or twice in a lifetime that burrows into your brain and stays there. Flashes of scenes as clear as day, filed away in my memories, but brought sharply to the surface by this resurgence within myself.
The golden question of this post and this concept being, if you could turn back time, just once, what about your life would you change?
My list is long:
The first searing and immediate one that came to mind is that I never would have picked up that shift. But there are more before, so what order do I place them in?
I wouldn't have dated my best friend and ruined our friendship.
I would have listened to my high school sweetheart who said long distance relationships were a bad idea, but we ended up pursuing one anyway and it shattered me. Both in enduring it and in it's ending.
I wouldn't have kissed so many boys at high school socials/ dances.
I wouldn't have started smoking (thanks to Covid 19, I have quit).
I would have said no when that guy asked me out or even attended the Under 18 party where we met (for the second time in our lives - the 1st being a junior school social - 3 to 4 years prior).
I wouldn't have tried drugs or alcohol and become an addict at just 14/15 years old.
I would have demanded mental healthcare and adequate parental care or at least a support system when I needed it instead of making more terrible decisions like dropping out of school - although that action saved my life.
I would have loved myself more and not become anorexic. Sparking a life long, unhealthy relationship with food.
I would have stayed in school and pursued my music, gone to my matric dance... made memories with my friends and enjoyed the rest of my childhood as a normal teen - well, it wouldn't really have been exactly possible, not in my high school anyway, as my mother and I had been planning to immigrate to the UK for two years before I dropped out
I would have followed through and gone to live with my mother in the UK.
I wouldn't have gone to that nightclub where I met my ex husband which led to years of torture and abuse.
I wouldn't have picked up that table that injured my knees, leaving me with a chronic and painful disability.
I never ever would have put my song book down or stopped singing. Thanks to
I have picked up where I left off and grown as a performing artist thanks to his guidance, friendship and support.
But I wouldn't have picked up that shift. That shift, that small detail, would have had very different consequences for me if I had not been there the 1st night the bikers showed up and I met my 1st fiancé.
Sure, there are many other ways I could have met them, but it wasn't my shift and it wasn't even supposed to be my table, but when I saw them pull up, bikes roaring and stainless steel glistening, I was transfixed. Caught in the tractor beam of the ultimate bad choice story. I still remember my housemates begging me to stay home: at 15 and already a complete workaholic, I hadn't had a real day off in months, and for the 1st time in months, I was not shifted. I'd thrown myself into work and partying hard and only really got sleep on a Sunday, when the restaurant/ cocktail bar I worked at as a junior manager, bartender, waitress, head waitress and everything in-between. I worked double shifts every day and then partied until the sun came up.
That, I do not regret.
However, the lack of sleep and overworking myself lead to a complete physical shut down of my body in the middle of a shift. Suddenly I started hallucinating, seeing two POS screens in front of me as I was trying to put through an order. Then I went white as a sheet and passed out. I spent the next four hours seated at the bar, staring at the wall, with not a single thought in my brain. Like I had hit a Windows Bluescreen.
Once the doors had closed and everyone had cashed up and left, my boss (who I was sleeping with at the time, despite his girlfriend being the owner of the establishment, as well as the dodgy age gap) asked me a very poignant question. When we had established that I could hold a conversation for the 1st time that evening or be vocal at all.
When last had I smelt a flower?
I could not, for the life of me recall.
Those bikers I met, that biker I met had given me his phone number, scrawled on the back of a till slip. He said to call him if I was game to go to a bike rally with them (him).
My boss banned me from coming into work for the rest of the week. The next morning, I called. I'd never been on a bike before, nevermind a rally, but that experience set a chain of events inline throughout my whole life that would not have happened if I just hadn't picked up that table... or that shift.
(
But every decision I made, I made with the tools I had available to me, and without parents to guide me, my tool bag was very empty. I knew how to survive, I knew how to disassociate sure, but I never learned to advocate for myself. I never learned what healthy choices were. I never learned to love myself.
However, and as corny as it sounds, every decision I made also led me to where I am today. I don't particularly like who I have become. Through trauma and pain I have dissociated as a parent and a partner and neglected my own mental and physical health.
I also have to remember that every choice reversal I could make would have ripple effects on everyone around me, and would not necessary lead to a less painful path. Have I lost more than I gained or gained more than I lost?
I never would have experienced the unexplainable joy of being pregnant with and holding my baby boy, 
I never would have met my love and life partner, 
Also would not have moved to Table View and met incredibly beautiful and life long friend who I consider family, which is incredibly precious to me considering my biological is shrinking so quickly.
Would my life have been better or less painful if I could go back and not make one of the decisions mentioned above?
I am not sure.
But here I stand.
And there is no going back.
I guess the golden question now is:
What decisions will I make now for ***my future
