About Time Monologues

At the age of 21, Tim discovers he can travel in time and change what happens and has happened in his own life. His decision to make his world a better place by getting a girlfriend turns out not to be as easy as you might think.

We're all traveling through time together, every day of our lives. All we can do is do our best to relish this remarkable ride.

And in the end I think I've learned the final lesson from my travels in time; and I've even gone one step further than my father did. The truth is I now don't travel back at all, not even for the day. I just try to live every day as if I've deliberately come back to this one day, to enjoy it, as if it was the full final day of my extraordinary, ordinary life.

And so he told me his secret formula for happiness. Part one of the two-part plan was that I should just get on with ordinary life, living it day by day, like anyone else.

But then came part two of Dad's plan. He told me to live every day again almost exactly the same. The first time with all the tensions and worries that stop us noticing how sweet the world can be, but the second time noticing. Okay, Dad. Let's give it a go.

There's a song by Baz Luhrmann called Sunscreen. He says worrying about the future is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life will always be things that never crossed your worried mind.

No one can ever prepare you for what happens when you have a child. When you see the baby in your arms and you know that it's your job now. No one can prepare you for the love and the fear.

I always knew we were a fairly odd family. First there was me. Too tall, too skinny, too orange. My mum was lovely, but not like other mums. There was something solid about her. Something rectangular, busy and unsentimental. Her fashion icon was the queen. Dad, well, he was more normal. He always seemed to have time on his hands. After giving up teaching university students on his 50th birthday, he was eternally available for a leisurely chat or to let me win at table tennis.

And then there was mum's brother, Uncle Desmond. Always impeccably dressed. He spent the days just, well, being Uncle Desmond. He was the most charming and least clever man you could ever meet. His mind was on other things, though we never found out what. And then, finally there was Catherine. Katie. Kit Kat. My sister. In a household of sensible jackets and haircuts there was this, well, what can I call her - nature thing. With her elfin eyes, her purple T-shirts and her eternally bare feet. She was then, and still is to me, about the most wonderful thing in the world.

All in all it was a pretty good childhood. Full of repeated rhythms and patterns. By the time I was 21, we were still having tea on the beach every single day. Skimming stones and eating sandwiches, summer and winter, no matter what the weather.

And every Friday night a film, no matter what the weather. And then once a year, the dreaded New Year's Eve party...

No one can prepare you for the love people *you* love can feel for them, and nothing can prepare you for the indifferences of friends who don't have babies.

And so I woke up the next morning. Hungover. Ashamed of myself and not realizing it was the day that would change my life forever.

For me, it was always going to be about love. And that summer, I walked into the eye of the storm. Her name was Charlotte - cousin of Kit Kat's handsome but nasty boyfriend, Jimmy. And she was staying two whole months.

I know you've probably suspected this, but over the last month, I've fallen completely in love with you. Now, obviously this was going to happen because you're a goddess with that face, and that hair. But even if you didn't have a nice face, and even if you had absolutely no hair because of some bizarre medical reason, I'd still adore you. And I wondered if, by any chance, you might share my feelings?