If Obama gets a do-over, I want one too …

I just finished watching LOST and I am exhausted from chasing my brain all over the house as it bends over backwards in a futile attempt to wrap itself around the concept of time travel. As soon as it gives up and realizes that it is forever destined to yell WHAT? WHAT’S GOING ON? WHEN ARE THEY? OH MY GOD, MAKE IT STOP, I’m going to tackle it and jam it back inside my skull and go to bed for three days.

In the meantime, my eyes are doing the happy dance all over my face.

Hi Jack! Hi Desmond! ((waving furiously))

Both of them make that two hour brain aneurysm totally worth it.

I’ve often thought about my past. Whether, if given the means and opportunity, I’d go back and change anything.

Have you ever read Erma Bombeck’s do-over list? I adore it and I want it engraved on my tombstone, right next to ARE YOU SURE? CHECK AGAIN.

I have a do-over list too and while it’s not as beautifully written as Erma’s, it’s pretty much the gist of what I would have done, had God not been having an off day and I had been born with any discernible common sense. I’d like to simply tack my list onto Erma’s, eat a muffin and call it a day.

If I could be guaranteed that my life would be exactly as it is now, except that I’d be typing this from my gorgeous mortgage-free home in a state with no snow, sitting on my firm ass attached to my smokin’ hot body upon which sits some wicked awesome hair, I’d like the following do-overs:

1. I would not have asked the doctor at my birth “WAAHHH, WAH WAH WAH WAAAAAHHH” which, roughly translated, meant “Are you sure I’m OK? Did you check? Everywhere? What about here? And there? Is this supposed to do that? Are you sure? Let me see your degree,” prompting him to deposit me in the NICU as tense, thereby setting the course of my life.
2. I would have taken more computer programming classes in high school and not been all I HATE THIS STUPID CRAP simply because my virtual candle decided to burn sideways instead of vertically. It did so because I did not know how to write computer programs because I wasn’t paying attention because I was bored stiff because I hated that stupid crap.
3. I would have avoided circles, especially vicious ones.
4. I would have looked my career counselor right in the eye as I punched him in the nose after he advised me to study criminal justice and then I would have stepped over his lifeless body and become a writer. Or a photographer. Or a rock star.
5. I would have taken some web design in college and saved myself a homemade frontal lobotomy when I was trying to decipher HTML and CSS and GOBBLE-D-GOOK years later with my own site.
6. I would have seen my divorce coming and been better prepared for it.
7. I would have encased my fingernails in cement until I was twenty to ward off my obsession with biting them.
8. I would have realized sooner that when it comes to grudges, moving on feels so much better than holding on.
9. But not before I walked by Steve L., decked out in self-respect and pride and four inch high Jimmy Choos and, in front of all of his friends, recommended that he screw himself.
10. Repeat #9 about thirty-three more times, inserting the names of various assholes you know, and their cousins, because odds are, I dated them.
11. It goes without saying that I would have played harder to get. But I’ll say it anyway, just to remind myself of my own colossal potential to be a whopping idiot.
12. I would have taken better care of my skin instead of treating it like an afterthought.
13. I would have lived on my own longer and enjoyed it, just to prove I could.
14. I would have taken a map with me from 1986 – 1988 so that I could have found my way back sooner from that vast wasteland known as WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING.
15. I would have jumped in my car and driven to hell and back to give my old college roommate Kim her own map.
16. I would have determined exactly where hell was before Kim hung up on me forever.
17. I would never have gotten in that truck on September 12, 1986.
18. I would have had a third child and to hell with my uterus. And our bank account.
19. I would not have eaten that donut.
20. Repeat #19 approximately 7,943 times.
21. Repeat #20 except insert pizza slices.
22. I would have taken more chances.
23. I would have taken less risks.
24. I would have written a journal for both of my daughters, starting each entry with Today I love you more than yesterday.
25. I would look in the mirror and finally understand how the whole can be greater than the sum of its sore, pale, aging, decrepit, pre-menopausal parts.
    

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What’s on your Do-Over list?

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