Take the Money and Run

I saw a question online the other day. If you were offered, no strings attached, either 10 million dollars, free and clear, OR the ability to go back to the age of six while retaining all your accumulated life's knowledge, which would you choose and why.

For me this is a mondo no brainer. I’ll take the $10M today thenkyewveddymuch!

Why?

I am NOT going back to my bleak, often straight up awful and sometimes hellish childhood no matter how much wisdom and knowledge I carry back with me. Six year olds generally have a distinct lack of agency about their lives. I sure as fuck had a total dearth of control. As I’m sure I’ve gone on about before, while I had a brill, loving father, mia madre could NOT have been more disdainful, standoffish, and disapproving. We moved every year or two until I was 14 and then it was to a small town in, very foreign to me, rural Western Pennsylvania. I had a violent, mentally ill sibling, was bullied relentlessly by classmates, and, due to all that moving around and the profoundly distant, unloving mother, was completely devoid of even the most basic of social skills. Hell, I made Resident Alien’s Harry Vanderspeigle look like Keanu Reeves, Dolly Parton, and Oprah all rolled into one.

Childhood through adolescence was about holding on, surviving until I could escape. Also, grand mas awkwardness.

To go back in time, I’d need a fuckton more than the knowledge that comes with age and experience. I’d need some big-ass breaks. Maybe to be raised by my grandparents in upstate New York? Possibly I could be adopted by a murder of crows or a herd of elephants…maybe a clowder of cats? Kidnapped/rescued by friendly aliens from Proxima Centauri b who raised me with proper social interaction and study skills? Any of these would be acceptable. 

I would take going back to age 17 maybe. With what I know now, I would def do a few things differently. Not join a traveling carnival for starters. I’d live on campus during college (versus at home, even if that meant sleeping in music department practice rooms and art department painting studios) and double major (fine arts and music/performance) and minor in chemistry (versus fine art major with music minor) and get some 1980 era basic job skills training (programming?) too. Possibly young adulthood would have been less financially challenging then.

With the knowledge I have now, I’d know that I had a 15 year window between brain surgeries. Maybe I could have gone to Berlin, lived in a squat, painted, and gotten back to Boston in time for bean op Nummer zwei?

Dunno, I have the knowledge I have now entirely because I lived through various levels of Hell. I made guesses, took stabs in the dark, evolved. I became what I yam (to sorta quote a great, spinach eating philosopher). I'm cool with that.

So yeah, bring on the $10M. On top of all else, I don’t want to live through all these insane Fascist Republican years again. 

To paraphrase (and update for the 21st century) Dorothy Parker, I don't know much about being a multi-millionaire, but I'll bet I'd be darling at it. 

 What would you choose?