Time Travel Troubles

This post is written as part of the What IF? Project hosted here on the Rivera Runs Through It Blog. Each week a new "What if?" question is presented and I do my best to respond to the query.  You are invited to as well. This week's "What if?" was

What if you could travel in time?

What if you could travel in time?

I'm the one who asked the question. I didn't think it would be so difficult for me to answer it.

After posting the What if #4 on Tuesday, I set my mind on thinking about my best possible answer. I went out to backyard, starting weeding and spent the time thinking about it, "What if I could really do it? Then what? What would I do? Where would I go? What experiences would I venture to get involved in?" I daydreamed like this for over four hours (yes, my backyard was that messed up!) and by the end of it decided given the opportunity, I might not travel in time at all!

What's the problem with time travel?

Check out more info on the Time-Turner

Here's what happened. I just started out on my weeding expedition when I thought I had figured the whole thing out. I thought, "Time travel is awesome. I could time travel like Hermione does with her Time-Turner!"

If you are not familiar with the Harry Potter tales, a time-turner was a device given to Hermione Granger in order for her to take more classes than time and scheduling would allow. She would take a class, turn her handy-dandy device back, and magically be able to re-live the same time span, but, on the second time around, she would attend another class being held at the same time as her first! It was/is brilliant. I thought, "If I could travel in time, I would use the time travel to learn, read, take up whole new lines of study, or - WAIT! - I could learn through experience and go to places and times where I could absorb actions as they happened! This is awesome!!"

And then I got carried away, "How much could I learn right now while weeding? I could just pop off - read a book, and then come back. No one would know I was gone and I could be getting two things done at once! After another ten minutes of weeding, I could pop off and go enroll in another graduate program! I could just audit classes for everything! I could go away for years, and then, when I was done, I could come back and finish weeding and no one would know..." but right then, in that moment, in that thought, it hit me. If I was gone for years, wouldn't I age?

I was stumped. I was done. No matter which direction I decided to move in time - forward or backwards - I would age while traveling. My heart was broken. If I somehow found a way to "beat" time, there was no guarantee that my body could beat it as well! Time travel couldn't help me squeeze more life out of life, it simply became a different type of vacationing. Crud.


What's the solution?

How the Doctor travels in time.

Nearly all the next day, I ignored thoughts of time travel (aside from allowing a couple of Dr. Who episodes to play on in the background while reading). Then, this morning, I started to tell my husband of my dilemma. For some reason, as I told him the story I just told you, I discovered that there is still some beauty in the time travel possibility on a quasi-regular basis. It can be used, if you use it for short jumps in time, where your aging does not necessarily factor in.

With this time travel is something I sorely need. I am CHRONICALLY late to things. It used to be a joke while growing up that my family was always the last to show up. As I began my own adult life working and developing my career, I improved slightly while getting out and about on my own, but eventually the genes won out. Finally, my stupid sicknesses added all types of delays to almost every single departure I have had from home! In short, I could use some time travel help! Every single time I am going to be late for something, there is a moment when I pretty much know this is going to happen - if I could travel in time, this is the moment where I could effectively make the decision to make a jump. If I am late due to sickness, I can ride out whatever symptom(s) are flaring and then jump. If I am dealing with the dogs, it can happen even sooner. If I am late for whatever other ridiculous reason, I can just stop and jump in time.


So it's not glamorous. It isn't adventurous. It isn't at all what I thought time travel could be, but, heck, it would be useful!

...and I guess I could probably sneak a couple of really good reads in without anyone noticing!

What are your thoughts on time travel?

Does the aging thing bother you? 

Could you choose to live in another time instead of this one?