The second of my two recurring dreams began when I was older. In my late 20s, I think. It has never left me.

Sometimes it starts in the halls of my high school. Sometimes it’s in my college dorm. Location varies between those two, but the theme is the same. No, it’s not nudity! In the high school version, I stand at my locker and I can’t remember the combination. I think I know it and I try and try, but nothing. In the college version, I’m outside the door to my dorm room. I’ve lost my key. I search every pocket and every crevice of my bag, but I don’t have the key.

I cannot get in…

… to my locker… or my dorm room… or my past.

The locker and the dorm room must symbolize my younger years. I want to go back to being a teenager… a young 20-something. But it’s impossible. I am locked out.

No one ever wants to relive the dreaded teenage years. I’m not sure I want to relive all of them, but the last half – from 16 on up – I’m all in. If I was offered the opportunity to go back, I would accept the gift immediately. I’m sure my desire to time travel into my past is psychologically unhealthy, but I have regrets. So many regrets. Decisions I made back then… stupid things I did… crazy thoughts I believed. God, yes! I want a do-over!

I know changing the past would make me a different person today. (Lessons learned from Back to the Future.) The change could be bad or good, but either way, I cannot help wanting to know if I could do better. In my head and in my heart, though, I know chasing the past is… well… pointless. I can’t go back.

But a girl can dream.