Genuinely?

I’d not be such a tremendous cringey dork as a kid.

I would not latch onto that one girl who did not give a shit about me.

I would fully avoid the one girl who did like me but then completely fucked me up.

I would move out of my toxic dickhead dad’s house before he got my bedroom raided by police.

I’d buy a load of bitcoin when I saw it for like 12p and thought “nah, that’s just for criminals, I don’t want to be associated with that”

But then…

If I can’t achieve those things without meeting my wife and having the exact same kids that I have now then I would honestly not change a damn thing. Scars and all.

I’m suddenly a 40-year old woman in the body of a baby boy. Overnight: the following things are true:

• I’m in Japan. My English is borderline-perfect, once my face and throat can express it. It’s okay, I was born to white parents who are English speakers, but they didn’t raise me with English. We’ll see where this goes in my new life.
• My wife, who I’ve fallen asleep to every night, is now 3-year old kid in Illinois. I will miss her deeply and I cannot even grieve without arousing suspicion. Her existence at this point in her life is miserable. I know what she’s suffering through and which address she’s suffering at. Even if I went to go see her, she wouldn’t know who I am. I don’t look like me. She also hasn’t met me yet.
• I know full well that I’m trans and I know that my mother and father are hostile to such notions, and I know there’s nothing I can even do at that point in time.
• Everything I have read, watched, and played doesn’t exist yet. There’s embedded cultural touchstones that I reference that don’t exist yet. I’m also a baby.
• Most of my favorite music doesn’t exist yet. I will hum songs by Hitorie, The Beths, South Arcade, Battle Tapes, and Emi Nakamura under my breath decades before they’re written. This is a problem.
• The technology I use to make my art doesn’t exist yet. Digital cameras at the turn of the millennium were ass.
• I’m still 40. I can’t pursue my hobbies and works. I can’t take pictures (yet). DSLRs don’t exist.
• One of my two strokes gets undone. My body moves somewhat easier. However, I still think and interact with the world like I’ve had two.
• The house I’m living in now hasn’t been built yet then.

In summary, endless culture shock. I would panic forever. My life would immediately be one of those television shows where suspicion keeps mounting against the main character and there’s jack shit anyone can do to stop it.

I suppose I could tell her that in sixteen years, 9/11 is happening and what transpires, down to Kevin Cosgrove’s phone call. She’d panic and try to contact the feds, and I’d just say that Bush already knows. It’s in the commission report that doesn’t exist yet.

That might actually radicalize them…