Time Machine

You’ve just been given at time machine. You can only use it once, to go back to day in your past and relive it or change something. What day would you go back to, what would you change and why?

If I had a time machine I’d definitely change the rules, because let’s face it if I have a time machine I’m not going to only go back to one day and use it once, and I’d go back to two separate days to change something I did. I don’t really think I’m changing the rules that drastically because both of these days are related to the same event and same person. I’d go back to June 26^th and June 27^th in the year of 2006.

Four years ago on June 27^th a girl I danced with, Sarah, died in a car accident. She was driving early in the morning and it had just recently rained. The roads were slippery and she lost control of her car and hit a tree. She wasn’t wearing her seatbelt.  Late in the morning a motorcyclist found her and that’s when I found out she had died.

A lot of the time when someone dies you get asked the question, were you and (fill in the person’s name) close? I always find this question to be incredibly frustrating because you don’t always need to be best friends with someone to go through grief. I’m unsure when this became a prerequisite for being able to grieve over a death. Sarah and I danced together for a few years, we definitely weren’t best friends because there was an age difference between us but I admired her greatly. Sarah was everything I wanted to be as a dancer, she was incredibly talented, funny, and not obsessive over calories like most ballerinas can be. Watching her dance on a stage was like watching an angel float through the clouds. She was born to dance, it came naturally to her.

I would go back to June 26^th and I would talk to Sarah one last time. Ask her how she’s been since she’s graduated from high school, tell her what I’ve been up to. One of the things I regret most is not keeping in contact with her as much as I would have liked to. I feel immense guilt about that. I didn’t know I needed to work harder and keep in better contact with her because I thought I would have all the time in the world for stuff like that. I was too busy in my own personal life and believing that life for people our age stretched on for an eternity. I don’t think I would try to change what was going to happen with Sarah, I might ask her to be careful, but I don’t think doing that would change anything.

Second I would go back to the day she died and I’d tell my mother that I wasn’t going on vacation that year. After we heard about Sarah we asked when her funeral was to find out it conflicted with our yearly vacation to the beach. I’d stay home. I’d stay and say goodbye to her. I think I had been in so much shock from the car accident I didn’t register how important it would be to be at that funeral.

My life is upside down now.

I can’t get into a car without feeling panicked. I can’t touch my dance shoes. I can’t function on the 27^th of June even as the years pass by. I miss her with so much more passion than I ever thought possible and I cry tears that come directly from my soul.

I wouldn’t use a time machine to go back to when I was little and things were better, or back to when I got published and was incredibly happy, or to get back an old friend and love. I would use it to have a little more time with the girl I still wish I could be more like. I would use it to give her a proper goodbye because that’s what Sarah deserves.

“Thanks for all you've done
I've missed you for so long
I can't believe you're gone
You still live in me
I feel you in the wind
You guide me constantly

I've never knew what it was to be alone, no
Cause you were always there for me
You were always waiting
And now come home and I miss your face so
Smiling down on me
I close my eyes to see

And I know, you're a part of me
And it's your song that sets me free
I sing it while I feel I can't hold on
I sing tonight cause it comforts me

I carry the things that remind me of you
In loving memory of
The one that was so true
Your were as kind as you could be
And even though you're gone
You still mean the world to me”