Me: "Oh God! OH FUCK! I can't do all this again!"

I’m suddenly a 40-year old woman in the body of a baby boy. Overnight: the following things are true:

• I’m in Japan. My English is borderline-perfect, once my face and throat can express it. It’s okay, I was born to white parents who are English speakers, but they didn’t raise me with English. We’ll see where this goes in my new life.
• My wife, who I’ve fallen asleep to every night, is now 3-year old kid in Illinois. I will miss her deeply and I cannot even grieve without arousing suspicion. Her existence at this point in her life is miserable. I know what she’s suffering through and which address she’s suffering at. Even if I went to go see her, she wouldn’t know who I am. I don’t look like me. She also hasn’t met me yet.
• I know full well that I’m trans and I know that my mother and father are hostile to such notions, and I know there’s nothing I can even do at that point in time.
• Everything I have read, watched, and played doesn’t exist yet. There’s embedded cultural touchstones that I reference that don’t exist yet. I’m also a baby.
• Most of my favorite music doesn’t exist yet. I will hum songs by Hitorie, The Beths, South Arcade, Battle Tapes, and Emi Nakamura under my breath decades before they’re written. This is a problem.
• The technology I use to make my art doesn’t exist yet. Digital cameras at the turn of the millennium were ass.
• I’m still 40. I can’t pursue my hobbies and works. I can’t take pictures (yet). DSLRs don’t exist.
• One of my two strokes gets undone. My body moves somewhat easier. However, I still think and interact with the world like I’ve had two.
• The house I’m living in now hasn’t been built yet then.

In summary, endless culture shock. I would panic forever. My life would immediately be one of those television shows where suspicion keeps mounting against the main character and there’s jack shit anyone can do to stop it.

I suppose I could tell her that in sixteen years, 9/11 is happening and what transpires, down to Kevin Cosgrove’s phone call. She’d panic and try to contact the feds, and I’d just say that Bush already knows. It’s in the commission report that doesn’t exist yet.

That might actually radicalize them…

As soon as I am able I would wander into the woods and perish

The way I’m reading this is that I’m turned into a baby in this moment. Why is it everyone else is assuming time travel?

Depends on if it's de-aging or time travel.

If I'm just de-aged and left in the present I would try and become a real life Baby Herman from Roger Rabbit and go into comedy.

If it's time travel I'd try not to make the same mistakes but then end up making all different ones and ruining my life in new and interesting ways.

Grab boobs while i'm still young enough for it to be cute

Genuinely?

I'd not be such a tremendous cringey dork as a kid.

I would not latch onto that one girl who did not give a shit about me.

I would fully avoid the one girl who did like me but then completely fucked me up.

I would move out of my toxic dickhead dad's house before he got my bedroom raided by police.

I'd buy a load of bitcoin when I saw it for like 12p and thought "nah, that's just for criminals, I don't want to be associated with that"

But then...

If I can't achieve those things while also meeting my wife and having the exact same kids that I have now then I would honestly not change a damn thing. Scars and all.

I would rule the playground with my knowledge of Pokemon and distribute Mew to those whose dex languishes at 150.

plot of a horror movie: Grown up trapped in baby body for 1.5 years while fully conscious.

Spend 20some years dreading that I'm probably going to fumble my wife by knowing she's perfect for me

Are we talking baby present time or baby back when I was a baby?

Eat a nickel.

well if we're talking newborn I would freak out the butcher who circumcized me by telling him in perfect english I don't consent to this. I don't know if I could realistically get out of it but I would try.

I would now be a baby with the full knowledge of a graduate engineering degree and several years of industry experience, and the knowledge that I'm a trans woman, bi, and neurodivergent.

School would be a tragically boring breeze, and I would probably try to get into some accelerated "child prodigy" academic program so I could get through it quicker. One of the ones where you start college when other people are starting high school. By this point I would have started male puberty, so priority number one would be to go to the campus doctor and start my hormonal transition. It would frankly be amazing to go through only female puberty, and at roughly the right age even. I could expect to end up much more feminine since the skeletal changes are still possible at that age and I wouldn't have had the full effect of male puberty on my face.

I would take my time at college, still study engineering but make it easy on myself, enjoy being a college girl for a while, have my slut phase while I'm still young. Idk how far I would go with it but I would probably study something new, probably get at least a masters again. A PhD would still be way too much work for me.

After graduating it would just be normal life again, but with the body I've always wanted and a little head start in life, as opposed to being really behind like I am now. Maybe I'd even be treated better by my parents, being born with more emotional maturity than they've ever had, and with a mind even older than they were when I was born. I still wouldn't trust or like them. They'd still be bigots and religious weirdos. But maybe having a seemingly prodigal child who outperforms their wildest dreams might make them at least be nicer to me.

1. Buy into Bitcoin while its young
2. Become a Crypto Bro, shilling to hell and back
3. ???
4. Become Billionaire

I would definitely avoid some mistakes and start saving early. If this also involves time travel, I mine Bitcoins and keep them.

Iknow this is just a joke but there’s a really good book along this premise. You only get your memories back at 4 or 5 though. The book is called “The First 15 lives of Harry August”.

I would probably shit my pants first thing.

Hope that all my medical issues aren't primarily genetic, I guess?

You know how people who go back in time always try to kill Hitler? Well, he was already gone when I was a baby, but someone else would not be...

I'd do a lot of the same, but in different ways. I don't want to mess up and miss out on my pets and all the other wonderful things that have happened to me, but I would try to live a better/less fucked life.

Try harder in school, achieve some modicum of success so I'm not such a loser, and fix my biggest, less consequential regrets. Nothing that would be life-changing, but would make me feel less guilty at least. I would do more to help the pets I couldn't save (2 babies taken too soon) and I would try to just live more, and not be as much of a shut-in homebody.

Probably try not to become an alcoholic too.

Transition

Take better care of my teeth , never even think about engineering or technology and instead pick up dentistry defy my middle eastern parents and actually not eat after I take my thyroid meds , and actually start taking it from a young age realize that my parents don't care that much about me and get over it try to warn them about the 2011 Civil war and tell them not to put every thing they make in a house that is going to be obliterated in the war and actually try to persuade my Dad who is a top linguistic scientist to take the offers he received from Europe and migrate there before the war starts instead of dying in this shit hole of a society ! , for a guy that was the top linguistic scientist of his country and has a phd my dad was dumb in his decisions especially the ones regarding his family
not overly cook my brain by masturbating too much actually eat more learn machining from a young age as a hoppy , make my own firearm for self defence encrypt my diaries from a young age and not let my dad read them , even tho he managed to unencrypt them later and realized his son is just an uninteresting looser tell my both of my parents to take better care of my elder sister so she doesn't end up a stupid whore

There are quite a few women who said things like "I used to have such a massive crush on you at school/Uni/work" and I never realised at the time.

If I had a second chance, I would realise at the time.

Ok, calm down Leto II

The only thing I can think of is to force myself to learn a lot of languages since babies are better at picking up languages.

Being younger doesn't really do anything. Maybe fix/prevent my scoliosis if it does reset like that? But without also going back in time, my options are pretty limited.

Philip! Nooooo! My poor girl!

(will anyone even understand what I am referencing?)