She wished She could go back in time and tell the angry, foaming-at-the-mouth, anti-Bush 13-year-old version of Herself that there would be a president worse than W. Her head would explode. Better yet, She wanted to tell Her that John McCain, the man She once considered the Antichrist, was the last respectable Republican to run for president and that towards the end of his life, She learned to respect and admire him.
She’d be happy to know that all those people who told Her She’d “lean more conservative when She turned 30” were dead wrong. She knew how She’d feel about who She was now, though. 13-year-old Her had Her hangups. Internalized misogyny was the biggest, and it only got worse in Her 20s.
She hoped every version of Her would be happy to see Her as She is now, free from those hangups and living freely as the person She always wanted to be. Raising a daughter in an environment that will never put her down for her gender or hold her accountable for other women’s perceived sins. She’ll never hear the word “slut” at such a young age and internalize or weaponize it. She hoped Deirdre never saw other girls as competition. Shoped, if Deirdre ever explored spirituality, she joins a coven of loving women rather than a cult dominated by old, women hating men.
She hoped we’d make it to that point more than anything. The past year had been grim. She woke up with more gray hairs every day, and She knew it was from the stress of daily life in America.
In 2025, She had a dream that Deirdre is back in the children’s hospital. She’s lying sprawled out on the bed in a pale yellow hospital gown, wires and tubes attached to her delicate, pale frame. She doesn’t know why she was there. A massive, life changing seizure, maybe?
A noise like an old timey WWII siren starts to play. A man with that old school cadence starts to talk, but She can’t make out what he’s saying. Possibly instructions to seek shelter. Soon, She hears people yelling and screaming. None of it is happening in the hospital, mind you. After a few seconds, She hears Her father’s voice over the commotion, reciting an adage that he used to quote any time they talked about WWII and the nuclear bombs.
Upon seeing the brilliant white light, stick your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye.
She turns around to the large window behind Her and sees a fiery mushroom cloud rise above the buildings not too far in the distance. She quickly turns around, picks Deirdre up, and tells her, “I love you, so much.” She holds her to Her chest, and the world turns blinding white.
She woke up feeling a certain way, like the world had changed after having that dream. It was a new, surreal feeling, like She had seen something She wasn’t supposed to. Prophetic dreams ran in Her family, and She’d had a few in her life. That one felt prophetic, as much as She hoped it wasn’t. And despite Her best effort to push it out of Her mind, She thought about it daily.
Maybe, She pondered, it already happened.
Since childhood, when She read books on fringe topics and outlandish conspiracy theories, She held tightly to the belief in infinite parallel universes and the possibility of quantum immortality. It all lined up with Her strange “Mandela Effect” memories. The Berenstein Bears, the cornucopia, Jeff Buckley having died in 1997 when She remembered him being alive and active in the 2010s, or Her cousin who She always knew to have three sons suddenly having four. The mysterious fourth son being the second youngest.
Was it likely? Maybe not, but it would explain the surreal feeling She got when She woke up. It gave Her some semblance of comfort. If it happened and Her consciousness transferred to another universe, She could keep going. Deirdre could keep going, happy and healthy.
But the state of the world cast doubts on Her parallel universe theory, at least in this instance. Trump and Israel were pushing all the buttons they could just short of the nuclear launch buttons. Their lust for destruction and distraction loomed over the anxious human race like a toxic fog.
The worst part of it all was, if it happened, it stemmed from a small group of people’s desires to keep Jeffrey Epstein’s name out of the news and hide the crimes they were all involved in. Human life meant so little to them that they would molest and murder children, then wipe out humanity to cover their tracks.
No wonder aliens won’t talk to us.
Help, I Need An Adult! 