Going back in time

If you could go back in time, what year would you choose?
For me, I would choose the 50's.

That depends. Would I have to take this old body with me? Would I know what I know now?

1/16

                                   The 1950's !

                                    Cheers..Joe

I like Al's response.  I would not go back to the 50's because it was a horrid time in my life. No, not the 60's or the 70's or the 80's or 90's.  Today is my best time.
Love,.
Betty

I have several favorites.  1971 was a very good year.  I would for certain go back to 1974 to 1980 if I could pick a section of years.  If I could only pick a few months, then I would take the six months in 1988 that I lived alone on a sailboat in Georgetown, Exuma. It was magical. Most of the rest has been working at appreciating each day for what it is, but it's a more settled life than the passion that came with the years selected:  First love, first child, first sense of self as complete alone - etc.  It seems to me that firsts are the most passionate and memorable.

Al, my thoughts were to go back in time with the body we had then.  To revert back in time also means to revert to the mentality we had at that time.  Going back in time with the knowledge we now have would not be fair.
As DK said, the firsts we experienced and the passion felt is memorable.  Remembering that first kiss, the first love.  The hot cars, the drive-in movies, necking, the sports events at High School.  All these things shaped our lives. 
The "Back to the future" movie was interesting, however they went back with the current knowledge and knew what would happen in the future.  If any past events were changed, the future would be different.

I would go back to the 50s.  Some happy memories.
The change from the Seminary to public High School,
First love, Rock and Roll, Joined the Army,
First parachute jump, Qualified as a Ranger,
Survived Jungle Warfare School, Survived the Army…

Some happy memories.

However as I say: NEVER HAD A BAD DAY IN MY LIFE,
SOME JUST TURN OUT BETTER THAN OTHER!!!

I like 2015.

1976. The grand adventure was just beginning. All doors were wide open. The next four years would be the happiest of my life. All my loved ones were healthy and happy. It's been a slow decline since then for this young old man who was a (very) young old man even then.

Victor, I like your response.  Remembering the excitement of the those years as we looked to the future with the expectation of fulfilling our dreams was exhilarating.  
I was asked the other day what I planned for my future.  Hadn't thought about it until the question was posed.  If I lived to be 100, it gives me another 24 years.  When I was young, 24 years was a lifetime.  With that in mind, there is still much I can do whether it be four years or twenty-four years before I transform to another life.  I may choose writing as my main activity since it doesn't require much physical effort, however choosing what to write not so easy.  I can however enjoy reading a good book and I'm waiting for the next D.J. Stephens novel.

In 1963, I remember thinking it was the best of my life.  It was the year I met, dated, and married my children's father.   Through the rest of that decade, I gave birth to my 3 children, and into the 70's I found myself settling in to my life as a wife and mother.  Then it was 1977, a year that I thought was the worst year, the year my marriage ended.  But then, I soon realized that it was also the beginning of a new life in a new city, a career that I loved and which led me to a totally different view of myself as a productive person with a purpose that reached beyond my personal self and included so many others: my students, my fellow teachers, and my growing children who were developing into their own lives and toward positive futures.

 Today I know that often what seems best can turn out to be less than, and the times that seemed almost unbearable were directly responsible for times that were better than those I once thought were so wonderful.

And so, through the 80's, 90's and aughts, with retirement, another move to an even better city, and time for the research and study that led me into a creative time that I, again, might never have known if I hadn't recognized that it was time for more and better changes, and embraced them.

I could say, if I lingered there, that 2014 was perhaps one of the worst years, as I came face to face with what has been one of my greatest challenges to date:  The loss of control over my own body, and the pain and stiffness, the loss of mobility, the loss of a degree of hard-won independence as I have had to accept help from my grown children who have their own lives to look after, not to mention the loss, at least during this past year, of my creative ability.  I cannot seem to focus on my writing, so much of my head has been taken up with this condition that is not going to go away.  It was a year of denial, then anger, then mourning the loss of the person I had become over the years.  Today I work with the business of acceptance, which as I've learned from past challenges is necessary to find a way through and forward to whatever is in store for me ahead, and in finding the skills to cope with the new changes, but, as I said to Lynn Thursday, coming home from our shopping trip, "I ain't giving in to this sh**!"  I will acquire the tools and means that I will need to continue a life of growth, new and broader views, and the means to make a contribution to the world I live in today.

For me, personally, waxing nostalgic means looking at the past with those rose-colored glasses, for our memories are always distorted by our experiences of those intervening years that have formed the people we are today.

It is something I cannot afford to do, certainly not at this time.

Just me.

Annie