2-50: The Golden Button

To Fast Forward or Endure

They say that if time travel ever exists, we will only be able to travel forwards in time, not backwards. I do not know enough about physics to argue with that. I do know enough about myself to find it worthy of consideration. I am sitting here, single, wondering whether or not I would press a golden button that could fast forward me to kissing my wife on the altar of our wedding day. If I could, would I skip right to that moment?

I do think about that day, sometimes more than others. More often than not, I wouldn’t think about pressing the button. On some days though, it would be harder than others. A wedding invitation with a plus one, I think to myself, “wouldn’t it be nice?” Among other days, thinking of traveling, someone to share something new with would be nice. Alas, I like to think that I would never press such a button even if it did exist.

To press the button would be to sacrifice all of the time in-between. God only knows what will happen between now and then. Will it be a year, or a handful of years? Whatever amount of time it may be, I will have countless opportunities to learn more about myself and others in the meantime. I am growing emotionally, spiritually, and physically each day. In every interaction where I choose how to present myself and my values, I am shaping my future self. Every relationship that doesn’t work out, I am better for it. In the most trying of times, we grow the most. The trough of this journey is not to be skipped. This is what makes the rest of it worthwhile.

Learning to embrace the path is easier said than done. Even if I could press the button and arrive at the altar, I would be the wrong man standing there. I would be the man I am today, not the man shaped by whatever is to come. The version of me that belongs at that altar has not been built yet. This button would deliver an unfinished version of me to a moment meant for my future self.

The final piece to this puzzle is that whoever my future wife is, wherever she is, she would not want me to press the button either. The version of me that she falls in love with has endured whatever was necessary to reach that moment. She needs me to go through all of it. She is out there, in her own in-between, being shaped by her own trials. I would not want her to skip hers either.

So the glass remains intact and the golden button stays unpressed. The time spent in-between is where we become who we are supposed to be, for whoever we are supposed to be, and for whenever that may be.