My Best Days: Living in the Past

My Dad, said it was an old paint gun cleaner. However, With its shape and weird angles it could have been a time machine. Liking a good joke, he along with my cousin Shane, decided to make use of their imaginations. When ever anyone would step in the paint department asking,” asking wow what in the world is that.” Their answer was oh that’s our time machine. They would then proceed to convince their victim to sit down, strap in, and let the time machine take them into the past. Of course everyone knew it wasn’t true. But, surprisingly enough, grown, logical adults, went long with it. The one exception was Jim. When asked if he would like to take a ride in time his reply was, “why would I do that? My best days are ahead of me.”

Listening to that story, like 99 percent of my Dad’s victims, I start fantasizing about what period of my life I would like to revisit. Umm maybe when im was little and my mom would serve Jordan and I homemade cookies and milk, after school. Or how about being at Sherries, talking and eating with friends till one am, Arguing with Seth Reeser and Rory…. laughing with Mindy. Of course I can’t forget playing tennis with my Dad on a cruise ship. The ocean beneath us and the stars above.


Yes, what bittersweet memory would I pick? What history of hurts would I rewrite? Because, each morning we wake up we’re writing our lives with no backspace or delete button. There isn’t any white out under the cabinet and you can’t go running to the publisher screaming you have been ripped off, mad because your story didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to. You can’t ask for another published copy. This isn’t your favorite book that you can keep and reread.

You have one chance on the spot. To visit the past is like being in the middle of playing a football game and running off the field, while your team plays on. You jump in your car, and drive home. Pulling out your old VCR you put in a tape of a game you played last week. What!?! in the world are you thinking? Don’t you know it doesn’t matter if you won or lost, last weeks game….! A real live game is being played. And when you and I are constantly looking back we’re forfeiting our chances of participating.

So here I sit trying to figure out which video tape to play from my past, when the entire time I’m wasting my present. Who is to say that I won’t eat better tasting cookies today? I can still stay up till one a.m. laughing with friends or go on another cruise with my family. Why limit the “ good old days” to the past when they are in our present and future?


For me this has been a year of first experiences, death/grief, having my heart broken, moving to a new state, missing people, buying a new car, getting direction, and seeing
Dreams restored. At moments I wanted to scream GET ME OUT !. . However, I have also experienced the chilling AWWWW that comes from “finding” God in the in-between places. What If I had a time machine, would I go back? Would I reverse my losses, and relive my joys? Ummm…. Tick Tick Tick … ….breath in breath out….. no I think ill answer, “ why would I do that? When my best days are ahead of me.”