Time Skips

             Have you ever gone sledding down a hill? A moment or two of excitement and adventure and then, when you’re at the bottom, you can climb up the hill again or go inside, rest, and drink hot chocolate made for you by your mother. Now imagine if instead of innocently soft snow to stop your racing sled at the bottom of the hill there was an empty black hole. Well, my life has been that hill, and here I am, at the bottom, looking down into the black hole. The worst part is that I did’t have to be here yet. I could still be sliding down the hill, screaming with excitement and laughing at the adventure.

           I regret many decisions I’ve made in my life. I regret bringing myself here, to my deathbed. I’m too young to die. Not in body, no. In looks and in health I am eighty. But in my mind I have little more than twenty-five years of memories. And in the end, aren’t memories all you have? The money and prestige doesn’t matter. All you have when you die is yourself. And here I am, waiting to die with only twenty-five years of memories, because I wanted to skip the hard parts of my life.

           I don’t know how it started. Maybe I have an actual illness, like dementia, and I forget all the time I wasted or don’t want to remember. Or maybe I really did skip minutes, hours, or years of my life and they never happened. The first time I remember skipping ahead is when I was five. I wanted a Barbie doll. I told my Mom, and she said maybe next Christmas. I waited day after day, imagining playing with the doll and of seeing my friends’ jealous faces. I can remember pretty clearly until one day in early fall when I wanted it so badly, I was crying. I can’t remember anything from then until Christmas. Nothing. Not Halloween or Thanksgiving. Then, suddenly, it was Christmas morning and I was unwrapping my new Barbie doll. I couldn’t remember waking up that morning or decorating or any of my family’s Christmas traditions. I tried to but the last thing I could remember was of me crying one night, wishing I had that doll. I didn’t connect it then, but now I know that it was wishing for something so much that made me skip though time.

          My childhood was full of holes I couldn’t remember. First grade to seventh passed in the blink of an eye. I look back now and can remember being confused a lot. When I forgot a week it was hard to know what homework I had done or what was going on in my life. It wasn’t until I was at least eight when I realized that I had some control over it and could skip anything I wanted, as long as I really wanted to bypass whatever event was going on. Sometimes I skipped short things, like a boring sleepover or the rest of the school day, but sometimes I’d skip more.

          The longest time I skipped in my childhood was was between my thirteenth birthday and my sixteenth. I wanted to grow up. I didn’t want to be twelve. I had older siblings who always got to do things I couldn’t. My parents trusted them to go out with friends and date. Twelve year olds couldn’t do anything. I was pimply, sick of middle school, and tired of being considered a child by adults. Sixteen year old could drive, work, make money, go out with their friends; they could to anything. I wanted to be sixteen so much. On my thirteen birthday, as I was blowing out the candles, I couldn’t help but think about how long it would be before adults took me seriously. I closed my eyes and wished I could be sixteen. I opened my eyes and everyone was cheering for my sweet sixteen. My childhood friends were gone, replaced by wild teenagers. I immediately saw the consequences of my mistake. I was still thirteen. I hadn’t experienced those three years, but everyone thought I had. I regretted it immediately and wished to be thirteen again and grow up normally. These weren’t my friends, this wasn’t my kind of party. I was still twelve, or well, thirteen, and I couldn’t survive high school. Sadly, I couldn’t skip time backwards. I was stuck going forwards, getting older.

           I wished my heart away, remember what felt like days ago when I was twelve. My biggest worries were shallow. I was forced to grow up too fast to blend in with the high schoolers. I had to keep up with school that was too confusing and hard, work at a restaurant every other day, and juggle a social life when I didn’t know who half my friends were. 

Eventually, I settled in to being older. I felt thirteen, but I survived my life. I learned who my friends were and I grew up. I was okay, even happy sometimes. It was fun to drive around on saturdays with my friends and even work felt pretty satisfying when I got paid. There were perks to being sixteen, but the flaws of not remembering the last three years of my life outweighed the benefits.

          I tried my best to understand why I’d skip events. I did tests to see just how much willpower I needed to go forward. I gained a general understanding of what it took to skip and forget times and used that to try to live my life normally. I dared not tell anyone, not even my parents, for fear that I would be committed to an insane asylum. I tried to stop, but really, there’s nothing you can do to stop yourself from wanting something. It’s just human. We want the best for ourselves. We’d rather be at the top of the mountain than endure climbing up it.  I tried to enjoy what I had to stop it from happening, but, still, every few days I’d slip up a little and get so sick of a class or of waiting that I’d just suddenly find myself a few hours later. Every few weeks I’d mess up really bad and wish to have something that would take days or weeks to happen.  It was hard and I felt like I was running through life, but I tried to enjoy the happy memories. Before I’d experienced fifteen years of life, I was twenty-two and graduating college. It happened time after time, all through my life. I’d just get used to being an age when I’d skip a few months or a year and have to start all over. I skipped another year trying to find a job, and another two while finding a husband. I never meant to, and immediately after I regretted my moments of weakness. I got so fed up with waiting for Mr. Right that I skipped ahead. I skipped trying on wedding dresses, half my honeymoon, my child’s birth, the first two years of my child’s life, my father’s death, three years of a midlife crisis when I was sick of working, and more moments that build you as a person. 

          The most recent, and maybe the most stupid, wish I’ve made was seven years ago, when I was seventy-three. I was sick with cancer and I thought I would die. I’d had surgery and chemotherapy but nothing seemed to be working. I wished to die already and skip the pain of watching my family be tortured by my illness. I knew that in wishing this, I’d be skipping ahead but I justified it. I trusted that I would die from this disease. Instead, I found myself weaker and in more pain than I was from the cancer. Now, I am dying from pneumonia. The seven years I skipped were filled with memories I don’t have. I missed my granddaughter’s marriage, my husband’s death, my first great grandchild’s birth, all because I didn’t want to deal with the end of my life. Every moment I skipped, though they may have been tough, were moments I needed to grow as a person. I haven’t truly experienced life. I don’t know why I was cursed with this, but my life has been wasted.  

           In my last moments, I don’t wan to dwell on my mistakes. Instead I just think of the memories I do have. Life flies by so fast, like sledding down a hill. I close my eyes and sigh. All my worries and mistakes float away. I fall into the black hole at the bottom of the hill.