You have a magic pill, which de-ages you by 20 years. You can take it once in your life only, so long as you are at least 20. What age — past, current or future — do you reckon is best to take it?
40, I want to go back to when my body was in great condition. At 20, I didn’t feel any of the aches and pains I had in my early 30s. It would give me 10 years to do a better job taking care of it and hopefully avoid the current state it’s in now.
So I take this pill, and I become physically younger. I don’t move back in time, I’m still legally a 36 year old, but I look and feel like I’m 16.
It depends on how this works. Is the pill a magic spell where there’s a poof and I’m in my previous body as it was 20 years ago, or is it just “damage and wear and tear are undone?” Because I’ve had a few surgeries I don’t want to redo in the last 20 years; I don’t want my wisdom teeth or appendix back. I’ve had a dental implant since then, does that reverse itself…is a bicuspid going to try to grow out of my skull through the titanium socket bone grafted into my face?
For practicality’s sake I think no earlier than 43, simply because…at that point your younger self is a fully developed adult; if someone cards you and says “You’re telling me you’re 43 years old?” You can say “Yeah I’ve had some work done.”
Much younger than 40 years old and you have to repeat portions of adolescence and/or childhood, which would be inconvenient at best.
Counterpoint: I didn’t discover I was trans until after the wrong puberty made being trans a lot harder. Going back to before that would let me right a pretty grand sense of wrongness.
Going with the just de-age interpretation and not time travel, it has to be late enough I could still pass for an adult but I’d want it before any of my chronic health conditions emerge so I can mitigate them. I don’t want to look younger, I just want the health benefits.
I can’t go back to being a kid because where the hell would new identity documents come from? I still have to be able to live my current life more or less. I suppose 35 is the absolute minimum for me to take it, at 15 I wasn’t getting carded buying alcohol. I reckon at that age with the right presentation I could pass for 20 at least, and a 35 year old seeming that young isn’t completely unheard of.
I can’t go too much older because issues start compounding in my 20s. I’d love to have picked a post development age - aside from my health, I didn’t really get comfortable in my own skin until then - but it’d be too late. Maybe 40 so the worst of puberty is over, but that’s probably my limit.
I turned 44 just the other day; honestly, without a doubt I’d have taken the pill the day before my 21st birthday. One big do-over and minimal responsibilities to manage after the de-aging.
✔️ Someone taking care of me 24/7 for a period measured in years?
✔️ School? What a joke. Ace everything, be a social and intellectual prodigy?
✔️ No bills, no responsibilities?
✔️ Boundless energy and Wolverine-like healing?
✔️ One set of friends in their 40s with life and professional advice/connections for you as you turn 21; and another set of friends your own age bursting with enthusiasm, ideas, and a gleam in their eye?
Like, I’m not seeing a downside to this over here…
I had a stroke at 21 that ruined (ended, really) my life. So anytime in late 30s, then get the fuck on blood pressure meds. And bitch-slap all the ‘healthcare providers’ that either didn’t believe me or didn’t actually treat the problem, only the symptoms (blinding, debilitating migraines). Fucking lining their pockets with visits and medication that they knew wasn’t treating the cause.
I’d have to have taken it back at 37 to go back to a point where my body wasn’t broken, and I’m trying to decide if the prospect of being able to stand without pain is worth being a teenager again…
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