If you could go back to 1983, what's the first thing you'd do?

[Sinat]

I'd buy a brand new Volvo 340 straight from the Volvo dealership

Learn Spanish. Run away to Bueanos Aires. Find a milonga. Learn the tango.

Have lots of wonderful sex with lots of wonderful hairy-chested men with caramel skin and eyes like melted chocolate. Men called Jesus and Raoul, Felipe and Isadore. My children would be called Enrique and Consuela, Ricardo and Guadalupe, Earn a meagre living reading the tarot and selling love spells and be called the "Mad English Cat Lady" because I feed all of the stray dogs and cats in the favelas, and take in the orphaned children.

I would die comparatively young - probably at the hands of a jealous wife, in a tequila-fuelled bar fight in a run-down cantina. All of my children - those of my body and those I adopted, would mourn me and continue to take care of all of my dogs and cats (and other children who need their help).

One of my many sons will probably join the priesthood and become the Bishop of Bueanos (Sanchez - he's always been a challenging boy, but my death has shocked him into the church and his faith just grows and grow). I never achieve sainthood - that suits me - but I am definitely influential in how Bishop Sanchez Viper doesn't let the government get away with anything and fights for the rights of the poor.

(Why, yes. This is something I've ponderered on before. 🤔

What makes you ask? 😶)

Look after my teeth better.

If I am the age I was in 1983, hug my grandparents and never let go.

If I am not the age I was in 1983, buy a house in London and tell my Mum to leave my Dad.

Go see The Smiths

Get one for me.

I love a pint of snakebite.

Give newborn me a cuddle and tell myself that I'll be fine.

Choose a different course at a different uni.

Buy some of the back to back terraces in the uni city I had just arrived in, the grand sum of £4000 each.

Hug my parents and my sister and tell them how much I love them. And then make myself relax about A levels and enjoy being a teenager a bit more than I did back then.

Buy tickets to Olivia Newton's John's "Physical" concert in the US (her last major concert tour and the best)! It's one of my big regrets that I didn't go at the time, thinking she'd do a UK/Europe tour a year or two later, but she didn't and I never got to see her live.

Split from husband a year earlier than I did.

Stop arsing about and do something with my life.

Ask the angels to please move me to different parents before I'm born.

Hug my mum so much and chat to her. If I could persuade her to leave my Dad I would - I think he went into rehab that year. I’d know she only had 21 more years to live and she would only have been 35 then which is so mad.

Yes to the Apple shares.

id also like to bring a working iPhone (no idea how it would work) back and show all my fiends the photo and video functions, Spotify and snap chat filters. Blow their minds!

Not dump my then boyfriend (back together now after a nearly 40 year gap)

I’d also tell myself to go to Live Aid in 1985 even though I’d only be 12

You can't imagine how much I envy You.

You are living your dream.

Buy tickets for the Serious Moonlight tour, and like a pp, travel to East Berlin. Get a job in my current industry and exploit the hell out of my foreknowledge.

I would tell my Dad that he was going to live until 90, and so should take more care of his body

Tell a trusted adult about my sexual abuse.

{{{hugs}}}

😓

💕 Tell us more?

Spend more time with my mum both in person and on the phone. Life wasn’t great for me in 1983; dc were 13 and 9 and Dh had MS which was getting worse and I was teaching full time. Dh died in 1986 and I wish I had persuaded dd to take up the offered scholarship at Bolton School instead of giving in to her pleas to go to the local comp with her friends.

I wasn't born! You mean if we went back at the age we are now?
Observe my older family members when they were young I guess. Wait, was Apple invented? Convince my parents to buy shares in Apple.

Probably shit myself because I was still in nappies.