Conversation Starters

Anyone who has been single recently will appreciate the need for a handful of semi-probing questions that you have to pull out of your arsenal when that first date is growing awkwardly silent. I have mine, questions like: What's your favorite movie? What is your top vacation destination? But my favorite by far is "What time in your life would you like to go back and live over again?" I further the length of the response by adding that you can pick one time to go back and live over knowing what you know now, and another to go back and live over just exactly like it was. Have you ever thought about this?

I have now asked this question so many times over the years that I have my answers down cold. But they remain as true today as they did when I first started thinking about it. After all, you can't ask a question of someone and not know what your own response would be. So here goes.

Knowing what I know now:
For this one I usually say college. That might not be entirely fair since it's a 4-year stretch of time, so if I need to narrow it down a little, I'll go with senior year. I would like to relive that year because it was SO freakin' fun. We got into the nice "new" dorms by the skin of our teeth. We didn't even have to walk up a flight of stairs to get to our apartment, we just climbed through the window. We were as close to campus as it was possible to be at that time (I'm exposing our sheer laziness here, or maybe it was just me...) We had a hilariously funny group of guy friends right down the hall. (I would not go into their apartment in my little do-over, though. I hope they brought in a hazmat team to clean it out.) Tailgating, Yahtzee, french fries off the kitchen floor...what a year.

The reason I'd go back knowing what I know now is that I'd enjoy it so much more without the shackles of insecurity that plagued me for so long. It held me back, which then undermined the experience somewhat. I've always had a morsel of regret about that.

Oh, and (Dad, cover your eyes...) I would study a little harder. I ended my college career with a solid B average but if I had applied myself just slightly more, I could have done a lot better. For example, I wouldn't have played "book football" with my copy of "Absalom, Absalom!" Or maybe I would have, did you ever try to read it?

Anyway, I digress...

Just like it was:
Without a doubt, if I could pick a time to go back and relive just exactly like it was, it would be summers in Camden. For those who don't know, there were a few years that my family had a house on Lake Megunticook in Maine that was, without exaggerating, paradise. It was on a little peninsula that stuck out into the lake. On one side was the placid little cove shared with one neighbor, on the other was the rougher, more open part of the lake where speed boats would whip by dragging waterskiers behind them. At the end was "the point", a rather steep rock formation, angling down to the water where we had a flagpole and a firepit for making the world's best smores. In the trees around the house there was a tire swing and a hammock.

With a family of four girls, I'm sure there were plenty of moments involving yelling, crying and door slamming, but that is not what I remember most. I remember board games and card games and hide & seek or my all-time favorite, Sardines. Sparklers on the lawn, swimming, air hockey, canoeing... it was a summer heaven. And then when the Delaneys came to visit – LOOK OUT. Six people turned into twelve, four adults and eight kids. Seven girls and one boy (poor Pat...) all in the same age range. It was the best of times. If I could snap my fingers and go back to one of those summers, I would do it in a heartbeat.

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I encourage everyone who reads this (all 5 of you...) to try this exercise sometime. Just writing this has brought me back to times that are forever imprinted in my memory. I suppose the "knowing what you know now" memory might not necessarily be a great one because it implies that you took some sort of misstep. But it is still fun to think about this stuff.

And I'll let you off easy: you don't even have to go out on a first date. You can just think about it on your own or discuss amongst your friends. And for those of you who may be floundering in silence on that next first date, feel free to use it.

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