What if...

Am I the only one who sometimes wishes they could re-live their lives, but with the knowledge they have now?

I often imagine how different my life, my relationships and myself would be different if I'd known which people to avoid and who to be friends with; I might have tried harder and done better- and stressed less, in school; I could have found the things I love that speak so clearly and that have changed and shaped me so much (i.e. Harry Potter and Wicked) earlier than I did.

I wonder if I could be a better person.

But then I wonder how my life would be different if that did happen. Would I still have the wonderful friends I have today and be able to appreciate them because I know what it's like to have been through bad friendships?
Would Wicked still speak so clearly to me if I hadn't spent such a large portion of my school life being a victim of bullying? A friendless, social outcast like the green girl I so admire and take strength from?

I'd like to think so, but one of the reasons I fell in love with the show is because I strongly relate to Elphaba.

And for a lot of my closest friends, it is our similar love for Wicked or Harry Potter or Delta Goodrem (or sometimes all three); and/or our similar experiences of being bullied or having low self-esteem that has bonded us and made us such great friends.  I'm not sure if you can truly appreciate good and real friendships until you've experienced the bad.

Besides, any movie I've seen with this kind of plot line, it never works out the way the character plans. He or she usually ends right back where they started, just more appreciative of how their life did turn out.

So, as much as I would have liked to have been a Potter fan from 1997, or been aware and a fan of Wicked from 2003; I have to accept that everything happens for a reason.
I've always believed that, and although sometimes I feel like I've missed out on a lot, and there are definitely things I would do differently, I am who I am and I can't change that.

But sometimes I still like to imagine what it would be like...