When my oldest son was a toddler, I took him to a playground in the local park. There was a “merry-go-round” there; but not the kind with horses on it. It was a large flat circular disc with handles spaced around the edges. Children grabbed the handles and ran in a circle in the sand to make the disc spin, and then they hopped on to whirl around and get dizzy.
My son wanted to ride it, so I placed him on the disc and gently spun it around. As his world slowly turned, he giggled with glee. He threw himself on his back on that disc to watch the sky. Then, some older children saw the fun he was having and decided to join him. They began to push that disc faster and faster. As it sped up, my son grew terrified. His look of wide eyed horror, as his world sped out of control, is firmly embedded in my memory.
It’s the look I see in my own eyes in the mirror on some days.
I’m not a “control freak,” at least I don’t think I am. Others may have their opinions, but I’m telling this story. I do like to have a handle on my world. Sometimes there is so much going on that I just can’t keep up with it. Y’all can all relate to that, I know.
Lately, I’ve been having a fantasy. I wish my life was on a videotape, and that I could use a remote control on it! Wouldn’t those cute little buttons come in handy? At the push of a button, we could have our lives the way we want them to be. Have y’all ever thought about that, or is it just my twisted little mind?
Well, for my Thursday Thirteen, I decided to list the things I would do
1. I’d press the “mute” button the very first thing! That seventeen year old stepson of mine is feeling his oats in his last days of freedom before school starts. I don’t know whether he is turning that music up louder, or if that’s just my perception after a summer of frazzled nerves. The ceiling shakes and the walls rattle until I can’t even think (and I have a hard enough time with thinking anyway!). I’m sure I deserve this payback for my own teenage years. My momma must have felt the same way, but I can’t remember that long ago.
2. The “pause” button calls my name! If I could pause the world around me, the first thing I would do is stitch a bucket-load of these crocheted squares into afghans. I’d love to report that I have many afghans put together for Share A Square, but all I can tell you is that I have put together seven of them and I have eleven of them farmed out to other people. I need to be putting them together at a rate of 14 per month. What I need is to get a move on.
3. If I could pause, I’d also answer all my comments and e-mails. If I haven’t answered you, please forgive me. I’m beating me up about it, so you don’t have to do so.
4. I’d send thank you notes for Share A Square, if I could just pause everything else. I’ll get to it. I really will. I’m embarrassed that I haven’t already made the time to do it. Just know, that I thank everyone who has contributed. Y’all have hearts bigger than Dallas. Just look in the upper right corner to see how many squares I’ve gotten in the mail!
5. Before I took that button off of pause, I’d allow myself to take a long, hot bubble bath, and give myself a manicure and a pedicure! You don’t even want to know how badly I need to have a manicure and pedicure :shock:.
6. Now that “re-wind” button could be a lot of fun, too. It’s not that I want to go back in time and re-live my mis-spent youth. Lord no! But, there are some sounds I’d love to hear again. If I could, I’d hear the delightful laughter of my boys when they were small, before they became such serious young men. It was sweeter than the singing of the Daoine Sidhe (sorry, I was reading Celtic fairy tales last night. I wanted you to have to do a Google search).
7. Speaking of singing, I wish I could re-wind to when I was small coming back from a trip to Dallas at night. I’d love to sit in the back seat of the car in the dark, and hear my Momma and Daddy singing harmony to songs like “Moon River,” “Mister Moon,” and “Blue Moon.” They both had lovely voices that blended so well together. They sang together as beautifully as they danced together. I guess they were made for each other.
8. I’d hear my Papaw telling his stories about “the old days,” if I could just re-wind. This time around, I’d listen to what he said, instead of just rolling my eyes and thinking it was an old man yammering. There are so many things I’d love to ask him now.
9. And, I’d re-wind to that day I was standing at the stove with Mamaw and she was telling me how to make corn soup. I swan she made the best corn soup in the world, but I let that recipe go in one ear and out the other. I’ve tried to make it, but mine is a poor excuse for corn soup. Dang, I regret that I didn’t listen better.
10. I would use the erase button on a few things, too. Not many. Though some experiences were horrible, I lived through them. I don’t like to remember them, but they are probably what shaped me into the person I am today, and I’m not displeased with who I am. I would like to erase all those times that I slathered myself with baby oil and lay out in the sun trying to get a tan. All I got was freckles…and now I’m paying for it all with wrinkles.
11. Oh, and I’d definitely erase that time I was about to go on a date with that really cute guy up at Lake Texoma! All my friends were gathered around, and I fell in the water. I was wearing skin tight white “pedal-pushers.” I was also wearing red underwear. Do I have to paint a picture for you?
12. As for that “fast forward” button, just forget it! My life is going forward too fast as it is.
13. Now, it’s your turn. Let’s take a poll and see what you would do. Just press a button and vote, then you can tell me in a comment what you would do if your life was on a videotape and you had a remote control.
Leave me a comment and you will be magically linked. Come back and sit with me on the porch another day.
Other posts you might enjoy:
{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
Very creative list! I voted for rewind but wouldn’t mind some of those other features, too.
My TT is at Buck Naked Politics
Thanks for visiting AND for voting, but what would you rewind to do??~skt
Great TT! I voted that if my life was on a videotape, I wouldn’t push any button. I wouldn’t want to either go back or FF, I think things happen for a reason. I believe the positive and negative things in my life have helped me grow.
Even if I wish it hadn’t been that hard, without any of this, I wouldn’t be who I am today and feel that happy!!!
Have a great day!!!
Great answer! I, too, believe that things happen for a reason. But, I still like that pause button
! Thanks for visiting~skt
I totally understand what you mean shelley!!!
I ‘magine the pause button will get a lot of votes! We will see.~skt
I’d go with the pause button so I could catch up with everything I need to get done, but I wouldn’t go back (although there are a few things I wouldn’t mind revisiting).
Interesting TT. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for stopping! Pause is good. I could do that.~skt
What a great idea for a tt!
Thanks, Starrlight. I appreciate you stopping by~skt
I think your list is great:)
Thanks, Lori! Have a good one~skt
The only button that really tempts me is the Mute button. Some days the world is just a bit too noisy.
I enjoyed reading your list today! Happy TT!
As I said, I’m with you on that mute. I just almost always think it’s too noisy…but that’s just me.~skt
happy TT! that was very amusing!!
Glad you thought so! Happy TT back~skt
I want freeze-frame, with frame by frame advance. I’d love to relive some of the best times, slowly, with time to really savour them.
Oh yeahhh. I could do that, too. The older you get, the more of those you’ll be nostalgic about~skt
I want the magic button that lets our son see how we all were when he was between birth and his first memories, just so he could see…
Great post, Shelly.
What do you think he’d learn??~skt
I think I’d push rewind and then play and watch it all from the beginning.
Neat thinking, Shelly. Really cool. But then, do I expect anything less from ya?
You are always too kind, Susan. I’d watch it all from the beginning, as long as the fast forward button worked! There is some of it I don’t care to see again~skt
Rewind, but just to be more observant and to soak up those memories of little boys and grandparents.
What a great 13! Love this idea.
Yeah, I missed a lot, too. I’m with you all the way~skt
I took your poll, and I was of the small percentage that wanted to push the fast forward button!
I know the best is yet to come! What an imaginative, well done post! Happy TT!
You are young yet, Kuanyin. Give it a few years, and it will be going by way too fast ~skt
What a delightful post. I voted for the pause button. Yep, just hold it right there. Have a great TT.
Yessirree, ma’am. If I could pause it, I would~skt
I chose “pause.”
I’d like to linger right here, with the wee ones — not too from their baby days and also a safe distance from the teen years.
Safe from the teen years, you definitely want to be there! Thanks for stopping~skt
I chose “Pause”.
I’d want a chance to catch up on all the sleep I’ve missed as a long term insomniac. It would be so wonderful to wake up fully rested without having impacted anyone else with being absent.
Great List.
~X
Oh, yes. I could use a little sleep myself. I’d love to pause my cat in mid yowl so he wouldn’t wake me at 4:30. Thanks for visiting~skt
I so need a remote like that!!
Happy TT13!
Yes, Frigga, we ALL do~skt
Rewind to about 3 days in my life:
1) The day before my grandmother and grandfather passed so I could say goodbye properly to those wonderful people.
2)The day I chose to sell my Microsoft stock. I should have waited another 5 years.
3)The day I sold my software company to a well known tech company. The next day those SOBs fired most of my employees even though they said they wouldn’t because their attorney found a loophole in the contract.
AAARGH! Yes, I’d rewind if I were you! Those are hard ones to remember, but oh, if you could tape over them and change the action! Thanks for stopping by~skt
Great thought. have you seen Adam Sandler’s gem of a film “Click?” If not, you should go rent it, it’s based on just this concept. He actually gets the clicker but learns that he misses a lot by using it! Good Thursday Thirteen!
Thank you, Damien. I’ll put that in my Netflicks queue.~skt
Rewind, Rewind!! Yes, most definetly alot of rewind
Rewind—with the option to fast forward again! I don’t want to live through it all again
~skt
A day late, but what can I say!
I’d probably push fast forwarded right now, just to the point where the move is behind me, the unpacking is done, and I’m sitting beside the pool with a nice cold margarita! Yeah, that’s it….fast forward! 
I bet you DO want that move behind you. Now, when you get to the pool with the margarita, give me a call. My number is BR-549~skt
Cute quiz. I would go with the pause button because everything seems to be going waaay too fast for me these days. Then I would hit the frame by frame a few times so that things are still moving, but not passing me by.
Yeah, I can see you are going to get tricky with it aren’t you? Well, it’s all in our imagination, so get as tricky as you want
~skt
lovely post Shelly, it inspired to come up with a post soon.
If my life were on videotape…i’d just let it roll…I neither want to go back or go forward…I’m happy where it’s playing right now.
You know you are going to have to come tell me when you post it! I’d love to come see what this inspired, but I never “leave the house”. I just sit here and crochet. It’s not that I don’t love to read your blog…it’s just that I’m committed. Haven’t found a way to crochet and blog, too, but I’m working on it. Thanks for visiting!~skt
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