It just suddenly occurred to me that today is the 17th anniversary of this blog. So I made a note to blog today because of course I have to. Sure, 17 is not really a nice round number to celebrate unlike 10 – when I made that whole post and even bought balloons and a cake because why not – but it’s fun to have an excuse to blog, I suppose, because lately I really haven’t been in the mood for blogging.
And this is something I don’t understand. When I first started out, I didn’t even have my own computer or internet connection at home but I would go out of my way and walk to an Internet cafe around 3 streets away and pay maybe 50 pesos or so per hour just to blog.
Well not just blog but also… what did I do back then, actually? Scrolled through Friendster, for sure. Joined Yahoo Messenger chat rooms. Forwarded chain emails to all my Yahoo groups. Researched about whatever show/book I was obsessed with.
If I tell my 2005 self that I have my own laptop and smart phone and a fast internet connection and can’t even be bothered to update my blog even at least once a month, she will be like:
Sweetie, I’m not sure what to tell you because I’m not sure myself.
This suddenly reminds me of something else, by the way, which is kinda related. There is a show on Netflix called Back to 15.
Here’s the synopsis from their wiki:
When the adult Anita returns to her hometown for her sister’s wedding and a string of disasters unfold, she takes refuge in the room where she spent her adolescence. When she turns on her old computer, she logs onto a photoblog she made and then our main character is transported, as if by magic, back to her first day of high school. That’s right—a 30-year-old brain stuck in the body of a girl of 15. Now she’s going to try to fix the lives of everyone around her—among them, her best friend Henrique (Caio Cabral), a nerd who has a secret crush on Anita, played as an adult by Breno Ferreira. However, each change made to the past impacts everyone’s future, and not always for the better.
Now I know that this premise has been done to death, but it’s the first one I encountered that involves a blog. Anita actually goes back in time to the first time she started her blog, and from there she changes things and then figures out that she could go back to the future by publishing a post on her blog.
I thought that if that were real, it would be cool, because I have thought before that I wouldn’t want to wake up as my past self and have to go through everything again. I just want the ability to tweak something and then be able to jump forward again to my suddenly better future.
Of course, the risk with this is what is called the butterfly effect – that changing a very small thing could lead to a huge ripple effect in the universe – and this has also always been one of my fears with time travel, that by undoing one small bad thing, I would also end up undoing bigger good things that I actually love in my life – like maybe I would end up never meeting some of my friends, or never moving out of the Philippines, etc.
I know. Why am I spending a lot of time worrying about something that isn’t even going to happen? Because. That’s why.
So anyway. What if – like Anita – I would be able to travel back in time through my blog? I wouldn’t go back to 15 years old because that was way before my blog, so I would just go back to 2005. What would I do differently then, given the chance?
For this exercise, I actually went back to blog posts from that era to remember what my life was actually like then.
Back to 2005
2005 was one of the best years of my life, so I probably wouldn’t want to change much. I was living in Makati with 7 housemates in a 2 bedroom flat, which sounds bad only if you didn’t know that they were all college friends and I loved them like family and we were happy to be in that situation.
So I would savor every moment with them, especially Ronald, since I know that he will die in 2021. I don’t know if I could prevent his death somehow, by saying or doing something in 2005. I don’t think you’re allowed to tell people their futures, according to time travel tropes anyway, but maybe I will find some other way?
I was still working for KPMG as an auditor and hated it, but I found a new job in P&G by May and this is something I would make sure not to change because some of my batch mates became really good friends who I still am close to until now.
I see that in April 2005, I made a post about weight woes… when I wasn’t even that fat! So I would make sure to enjoy my young body and not suffer from negative self esteem so much and go on many dates. I don’t know why I thought I was fat and ugly when I looked like this:
I would kill to look like that again. And to have all the energy I did, then, too, so I would do all the activities that I am now too tired to enjoy.
I would also take more videos and blog more – in excruciating detail – so I would something to remember in the future.
I would also do better at work. I was just not that responsible back then and could definitely have been a better employee. 😅
I would be better at saving and figure out how to start investing instead of spending money on frivolous things, knowing that I would be needing said money by 2008. Maybe I could get my move-to-Singapore money from savings instead of a loan, and prevent a lot of headaches.
I guess that’s already a lot! So much for not changing that much, eh?
What about you, if you went back to 2005 in your own body then, what would you change in your life?
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