Fun Monday - Do Over?

Roger at A Screed in Time has decided to give this Fun Monday hosting thing a shot - and has issued his first challenge! He writes:

For this week I would like you to answer one of the following questions (yes, I am giving you a choice); If you could pick any ten years over again, without changing them, which ten years would you choose and why? These years do not have to be consecutive years, but there should be ten, okay? Your second choice is, explain the wonders of living in orbit over the moon, or any planet of your choosing (not Earth) for ten years, describe what you think life would be like and if so inclined, describe the planet.

Hmmm....  Much as my son thinks I should write science-fiction, I think I'm going to go with option one.  But as usual, these FM challenges get me thinking - would I live over 10 years that were wonderful, or would I live over the years of bad choices, making different ones?  That's the real connundrum.  My good years were pretty darned wonderful.  The bad ones were pretty awful. 

Were I to live over my best years, I'd say the 1990s.  I was in my 30s.  In the most awesome shape ever, thanks to my love who took me out to do stuff.  We rode mountain bikes and went rock climbing.  We drove across the country several times and never ran out of things to talk about.  We got married, bought a piece of land and a nice mobile home to go on it.  And right near the end of the decade, our darling ZBoy joined us on this planet.  It was a most idyllic time.  Okay, that was a little white lie.  Right in the middle of that decade, right after we signed our mortgage, Darling Man was laid off.  He didn't find a regular job for 6 years.  Luckily, he was a skilled TV production guy and much as he hated the travel, there was plenty of work for him out there on the road.  For what seemed like forever, he would leave on Thursday nights and return late Sunday.  It was hard for him to be gone so much and while the money was good, it came so sporadically that it was almost impossible to budget.  Thank goodness a local production company had some fairly regular work so he could stay home a little more often in the summers and not have to go do golf, which to Darling Man was about the deadliest thing ever.  But still - those years...  I think they built us.  The sense of pulling together and doing what we had to to survive and thrive in spite of circumstances...  It was like super-glue.  At the end of this month, we celebrate 16 years of marriage.  And look forward to many more.

But were I to go the other way and choose the years that weren't so good, the ones I would live over so I could change things...  I'd say 1980 (the year I started dating the ex), 1982 (the year I married the ex), 1985 (the year I spend two weeks in the battered women's shelter), 1986 (the year I decided to stay because I was supposed to make it work), 1989 (the year I finally left and ran home to the parents), 1990 (the year I settled back into TV as a career rather than taking advantage of my new freedom to go to school and really change my life), 1995 (the year of panic...  DM got laid off and suddenly the world looked a lot less rosy).

Um...  that's only 7.  I can't think of any other bad years though.  Years where something awful happened that overrode the whole feeling for the year.  I suppose that's a good thing.  But here's THE thing.  As bad as those 7 years were, if I hadn't made the decisions I had, I might not have wound up where I am NOW.  And I like where I am now.  I have a wonderful man to love, an amazing son, a nice home, and a job I like.  Who's to say that had I done things differently that I would have wound up happy now?  I learned a lot from those bad decisions and much as the 80s weren't fun, the rest of my years have been.  Even 1995, which actually, aside from the husband being laid off, was pretty wonderful.  That was when we got married, when we committed to being together for the long haul.  We just hadn't anticipated "for worse" and "for poorer" happening quite so soon.  Still, a good year.

So there you have it.  Two sides of the same question.  Now go visit Roger's blog and see what the other participants have to say.