Here's a question I like to ask people when I'm 5/8 drunk: Let's say you had the ability to make a very brief phone call into your own past. You are (somehow) given the opportunity to phone yourself as a teenager; in short, you will be able to communicate with the fifteen-year-old version of you. However, you will only be able to get to talk to your former self for fifteen seconds. As such, there's no way you will be able to explain who you are, where or when you're calling from, or what any of this lunacy is supposed to signify. You will only be able to give the younger version of yourself a fleeting, abstract message of unclear origin.
What would you say to yourself during these fifteen seconds?
- Chuck Klosterman, Eating the Dinosaur, p. 57
Chuck Klosterman is one of the very few authors who can inspire me enough to close a book, stare off into space, and contemplate what I just read. This is perhaps not the best thing for him, because it takes me forever (relatively speaking) to finish a book, so I haven't read as much of his work as I want to. It's great for me though, because his thoughts do what very few people can - they actually force me to think about the world. Not only force…they make me want to sit and stare and think. As someone who can't sit still for very long, who is constantly multi-tasking and mulling over a dozen things at any given time, it takes a hell of a lot for something to slow me down. For something to make me want to cease all activity and to just think about a specific topic? Well, that's essentially unheard of. And yet, Mr. Klosterman seems to have it down to a science. I'd love to have a beer with the guy and chat, but the odds of that are pretty damn low. I'd probably end up sitting, slack-jawed, listening to his genius anyway; I'd be a horrible companion and he'd probably think I was mental. Ah well, a girl can dream.
So now I direct your attention to the above quote, which (if you are a normal person) you read first, and then got confused as to why the first paragraph had absolutely nothing to do with time travel. This is the most recent passage that caused me to zone out and process. Klosterman spends an entire chapter in his book Eating the Dinosaur on the implausibility of time travel, which is perhaps-not-so-coincidentally written in a non-linear fashion. The entire chapter is brilliant, but this specific section really struck me. Probably because it asked me a question.
What would you say to yourself during these fifteen seconds?
My first answer came to me instantaneously. It wouldn't even take fifteen seconds. Mr. Klosterman, I thought, I have beaten your game! I'd just tell myself that medicine was the wrong field. Maybe even simpler. Don't apply to medical school. Yes, that would do it…that would be what I needed to hear. But just as quickly, I flashed back to my fifteen-year-old self. She probably would believe such a phone call was a joke. Maybe even a hallucination brought on by too much work and not enough sleep.
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The phone rings. Amber searches for the cordless and answers with a short “Yeah?”
“Amber. Listen up. Don’t mourn for Pluto. Just come up with a new mnemonic.”
Amber wrinkles her forehead. “Uhh, what are you talking about?”
The phone disconnects. Amber drops it on the counter and shrugs. She goes back to cooking.
So I thought again. How could I make it more clear to past-me that medicine was the wrong field? I could say that the 6-year program was a bad idea, but even that might just come across as a challenge to past-me. Could I point myself toward psychology? I could try, but fifteen-year-old me wouldn't understand why, and I wouldn't have time to explain. Ok, Chuck, I am now seeing the conundrum.
It was here that another thought struck me. Say that I was able to say that medicine was wrong and psychology was a better choice. Say that fifteen-year-old me believed it and went along with it. How could she ever know for sure medicine was wrong? Would I really want to create a perpetual sense of doubt in myself? That sounds thoroughly unhealthy.
So, hypothesize with me again. The phone call works. Past-me somehow believes me, and I save myself the 4 years of misery and debt I spent in medical school. The things that would change would be innumerable. Many of the friendships - pretty damn close to family - I have were forged in the hours of lectures, labs, patient rooms, libraries, and Starbucks that medical students are forced to endure. I can't imagine my life without them. Here's when you say, "But Amber, you'd make entirely different friends, they'd surely be just as close, and you'd never know what you were missing. That's a stupid thing to get caught up on." And you'd be right. But the fact is, I wouldn't want to lose them (but it's not a loss if you never knew them, you say). But I do know them. And if past-me grows into present-me and doesn't know them, somehow she has managed to lose something from her future. Something that has kept her grounded, sane, and happy for over 6 years. How could I do that to myself?
Then I got stuck in common time travel conundrum, one that Klosterman spends a significant amount of words on. If fifteen-year-old me did believe me, wouldn't that change the me I am today? It would have to, somehow. So then if past-me changed career paths, there would be no reason for me to make said phone call. And now we're stuck in a loop that really only has one viable solution. Constantly splintering, simultaneously existing, alternate realities. I kind of like this idea…if only there was a way to peak through a portal and see how the other timelines were doing. That may just make the what-ifs worse though, knowing for sure what was best and having no way to fix it.
I reread Klosterman’s quote. Obviously, I thought, I had just chosen the wrong message. Maybe something not so life-changing could be easier and still have a positive impact on past-me. I went through several options.
Don't trust him when he smiles that way.
Make sure you finish that paper.
When you go get stitches, make them x-ray your hand twice.
That fight isn't worth it. Stand up and walk away.
Go above his head; make him stop harrassing you.
Don't let him convince you to do something you don't want to.
Every one I tried, ultimately led me to the same conclusion. I had no way to know how such a message could be believed, or the effect it might possibly have. So I got even less specific.
She’s not worth your, or his, time.
There are more people out there.
Don’t pull your punch.
But, see, these all could cause ripples that create waves, changing the tide of my past and recreating the future/my present. It simply wouldn't do. By this point, I wanted to simultaneously shake Mr. Klosterman's hand and punch him in the face. Damn him for outsmarting me!
I thought more deeply about me at fifteen, too, trying to recall just who I was then. Counting back to figure out what grade I was in at fifteen (I can never remember anything by my own age), the memories returned. I was a nearly suicidal, honor roll-making, varsity-sport-playing, not-so-healthy-relationship-having, future doctor who was functioning on absolutely no sleep, raising two children, and running a household of five. She was not in a happy place, and she felt completely cut off from the world. In her mind, whether she was right or not, no one understood just how much pressure she was under. Klosterman had picked a great age to contact. Who at fifteen wouldn’t kill for some insight into the future? That’s the girl who I wanted to reach out to. That’s the girl that needed my help.
I gave it one last stab, convinced it was a paradox and that I'd never have an answer. Then it came to me. Unfortunately, it's the same message that we've been hearing for months and years now. Of course, fifteen-year-old me wouldn't know that. And it's vague, and unclear, and not enough to change my entire life trajectory. But it's exactly what I wanted so desperately to hear back then.
The phone rings. Frazzled, Amber scrambles to find the cordless phone, locating it under a pile of homework that Joey needs reviewed. As she shoves the phone between her cheek and her shoulder, she answers with a short "Hello?" and turns back to check on the homemade pasta she is preparing. She hears a strangely familiar voice start to rush.
" Amber, I need to tell you something. Are you listening?”
"Who is this?" she responds, returning her focus to the stove. Their voices overlap.
"You need to know this. Life is hard, and I know you want to give up, but you can't. There are people who love you. People rely on you. And someday you will look back and see that even the worst days were worth living. You're strong. You can survive. It gets better."
“Who—“ The phone disconnects. “Hello?” She sets the phone on the counter and stares at it, feeling tears well up. She doesn’t know who the caller is, but she loves her in that moment and hopes they'll meet someday.
The other Amber is crying too.
