Would I go back and relive a year of my life? My first instinct is to say no. Life is what it is, and the only way forward is forward. But if I had to pick a time, it wouldn’t even be a full year — just a sliver of time: September and October of 1990.
That was the month Daryl and I became close friends. She and her husband were separated, and for a few weeks we built this really good, natural, easy friendship — nothing more — but it was clear we were getting too close. She was still married, and even though the marriage was deeply broken, she chose what she believed was right and reconciled. She spent more than a decade in pain because of it.
I married Vicki, who was my best friend, but that marriage was more friendship than passion. It wasn’t until 2015 — twenty-five years after that October — that Daryl and I finally reconnected and ended up married. I wouldn’t trade what we have now for anything. But sometimes I do wonder what life would’ve looked like if things had gone differently back then, if we’d had a full lifetime together instead of starting so late.
And yet — here’s the thing that always stops the “what if” story: if I go back and change 1990, then there’s no Lizzi. No Josh. No Jonathan. No Sully. And I would not erase one of them for all the gold in the world.
So no. In the end, there isn’t a year I’d re-live. I don’t need a do-over. I just need to live this year — and every one I’m given — as well as I can.
Copyright © 2025 Doug DeBolt.
