24 Hrs Traveling Through Time Like Captain America

How would I spend a perfect 24 hours? There's no question about it, at least not in my mind. Where do tortured souls go when they consider their perfect 24 hours? They want to travel to a place outside of time and space. A place that exists only in the happier places inside their minds.

My perfect 24-hour journey takes me back to the Summer of 2003. A dying man wanting to relive one of the greatest times of his life; who would have thought? But it was in the Summer of 2003 that I pulled out of Galesburg, Illinois, in my Explorer, bound for Sanibel Island, Florida.

As I get older, the memories are still there, but over time, they've become harder to recall. I remember the joy I felt in my heart. How happy I was. This was my first time looking out at the ocean, feeling the sand beneath my feet as it got lodged between my toes. I'd waited a lifetime to get to the ocean and see its vast expanse firsthand.

Seeing the youth and innocence in my son, as we walked the beaches and explored the beauty and wonder, would be part of my perfect day. It was a different time, and we were both so different. But we both experienced the ocean for the first time. And we did it together.

The simple joy of collecting seashells on the beach, watching the sun go down over the Gulf of Mexico, and what each day would bring was special. And when you get to look at it through younger eyes, eyes unjaded by the toils of adulthood, it's all the better.

The vacation memories that made my one, true, perfect day were capped by swimming out into the gulf. We were out a hundred yards, and I was still in chest-high water. I'll never forget when a local pointed out that we were feet from a dolphin. They would swim right up on us, close enough to run your hands over their silky, wet skins.

Before getting cancer, I had thought we should go back there. But things happen, and curveballs come flying your way, so we haven't made it back.

For it to be a truly perfect 24 hours, especially as I travel through time, I'd travel back to 2011.

If I were given the gift of a perfect 24 hrs, I'd have to do some things that would change things for people and help them. I may not have any more perfect days in my current life, but if I could travel through time for 24 hours and tweak a couple of things, it would be the perfect effect.

Of course, my first stop would be to visit 2011 me. It wasn't a bad year. I was 39, recently single, and well-adjusted. Little did I know it wouldn't last long. Part of my perfect day traveling through time, visiting all my greatest hits, would include educating my younger self. If at 39 I had come back and visited myself, I could have warned myself to start getting the yearly proctology exam, or demanding the blood tests that would have possibly found my cancer earlier.

Time travelling, the ultimate possibilities for a perfect day. And while I'm visiting, I could drop a little bug in my brother's ear. And tell him that no matter what, when I walk away from an at-home project frustrated and tired, don't try to tackle it alone. It was one of the nicest things someone's done. It also turned out to be a costly mistake, as he herniated a disc and has suffered ever since.

My perfect days may be behind me. But this looks like a perfect day, if I could have just one. If I got that one perfect day, maybe when I got back, the changes would let me return to Sanibel. Cancer would have been easier to deal with, and I might not be dying. I would have saved my brother the problems he developed, and he might be able to handle the travel. And I'd be more capable today than I was when I got diagnosed, and not suffering from a diminished capacity caused by cancer.

Until then, thanks for taking this brief trip through time with me.