Trade all of my tomorrows for just one day?

In the past 24 hours, three people have asked me why I haven’t blogged for awhile, so I take that as a sign that I need to get back to writing…this blog AND my book. It’s been a crazy summer, and I need to get back into a few routines. Don’t laugh, routines can be good!

My friend, Winston, and I are starting to put together an acoustic duo to play happy hours, small clubs, etc. One of the songs we’re working up is Kris Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee,” made famous by Janis Joplin. I really don’t care for her version of the song, mainly because I’ve never been a Janis Joplin fan (my personal favorite is the Roger Miller version).

I’ve mentioned in an earlier blog that “Me and Bobby McGee” contains what is, in my opinion, one of the best lyric lines ever: “I’d trade all of my tomorrows for a single yesterday.” When I was practicing the song earlier tonight, I started thinking more and more about that line, then started to think “what if I COULD trade all of my tomorrows for a single yesterday…which yesterday would I choose?”

There have been so many movies about going back or going forward in time, or reliving a piece of your life. “Back to the Future” is probably the most popular, although if you’ve never seen Michael Nesmith’s “Timerider”, look for it. It’s a great movie starring Fred Ward as a biker who rides through Baja California as the government is testing a time machine, and he goes back to the old west.

So if I could only choose one yesterday, which day would I choose? I’ll be the first to admit that, although I’ve experienced a lot of pain and loss over the years, I lead a pretty charmed life. I’ve achieved many of my goals and aspirations, so there are many “days” to choose from.

When most people are posed this question, I think it’s only natural to immediately consider going back to the best times of your life. For me, perhaps I would go back to special occasions in my life, like my wedding day. Most of my friends were there, I got to play a set with the band, and much of my family was still alive and in attendance…even my dear old grandma!  Or maybe it would be the day that I woke up and, for the first time ever, realized that I was a dad. It was a Saturday morning and I had spent the night at the hospital. When I woke up, it was around 7 a.m. and there was a steady rain falling…the perfect setting to ponder how my life was about to change in ways I couldn’t even imagine.

I’m sure that many of those best days would also include all the times spent with my friends in high school and college, but how could I pick just one specific time when there were so many good days?  And if I used the old “if I knew then what I know now” philosophy, it wouldn’t be nearly as fun and exciting as it was then.

And first kisses…man, what I wouldn’t do to relive those. In my opinion, there’s no greater feeling in the world than kissing someone for the very first time. Not just the peck on the lips, but that first REAL kiss. What an amazing feeling!

At the other end of the spectrum, another thought that always crosses my mind when I think about going back in time is to go back to the day before my father was killed, almost as if I could stop it from happening. Whenever I hear the song “Nowhere Man” by the Beatles, I always get a little melancholy because it was popular around that time, and I tend to equate it with what I consider the last time in my life that I felt normal…that everything was ok.

But for tonight anyway, I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint my readers. For you see, I did come up with the specific day that I would go back to, but I will not share it. It was a day that I’ve kept inside of me almost my whole life. It’s a day that I would like to go back to more than anything, just so I could right a wrong. I doubt that it would change anything that happened after that day, but it would certainly lift a burden from my soul. Before you jump to any conclusions, I didn’t kill anyone or anything like that. It’s just something that’s always bothered me, and probably always will.

Sorry to be so heavy on my first day back. My next entry will be funny as hell, I promise! In the meantime, think about what day you would trade all of your tomorrows for.