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  "description": "by Helen Collins Sitler  |  The limits of change.",
  "path": "/i-want-a-do-over/",
  "publishedAt": "2025-10-01T11:15:09.000Z",
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    "WANTED: New Flash Essays →"
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  "textContent": "Maybe it could start at the traffic light on the way home, when my husband stops fifty yards short of the intersection and, surprised, I ask, “Are you having trouble with depth perception?”\n\nIf I get this do-over, instead of challenging his vision—he is sixty-three, and it’s after dark—I look to see if he’s squinting. I pay attention to him at the next light and at stop signs near our home. Maybe I check the calendar for his most recent or upcoming eye appointment.\n\nMaybe then he doesn’t bark back, “I don’t stand on the brakes too close to the light like you do.” Then the car isn’t silent for the rest of the drive. Then we don’t enter the house annoyed with each other. Then, when he hands me the small box, I don’t accuse him of buying me a gift only because he’s just ordered a new guitar for himself. Wave after wave of life rolls in differently, with love instead of accusation.\n\nEven if I could have a do-over, I know the out-of-nowhere heart attack ten weeks later would probably still happen. I would still be sitting at his funeral. But maybe my heart wouldn’t wrench in quite the same way every time I wear the bracelet he gave me that night.\n\n* * *\n\n**Helen Collins Sitler** lives and writes in southwestern Pennsylvania. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee. Her flash nonfiction has appeared in  _Beautiful Things_ , _The Sunlight Press_ , _Hippocampus Magazine_ , and _Post Road_. She has contributed longer nonfiction to narrative medicine journals and  _Brevity Blog_.\n\nThis essay is a _Short Reads_ original.\n\n* * *\n\n### **From the archive**\n\n\nOct 2, 2024\n“The Chicken Is Maligned”\nby Luke Reiter | The rooster struts by.\n\nOct 4, 2023\n“This Washcloth”\nby Sarah Kilch Gaffney | Finding meaning in the mundane.\n\nShare this on: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Bluesky\n\nThis issue of __Short Reads__ was 🚦🚗 edited by Hattie Fletcher; 🗓️👓 fact-checked and proofread by Chad Vogler; 🎸🎁 designed by Anna Hall; and 🌊❤️ delivered to our 2,276 subscribers by Stephen Knezovich.\n\n****PS/**** We’re looking for new flash essays. See the submission call →\n\n****Miss an issue?**** Every  __Short Reads__ essay is available on short-reads.org.\n****Want more like this?**** Subscribe to __Short Reads__ and get one fresh flash essay—for free—in your inbox every Wednesday. Or become a supporting subscriber and help us pay writers.\n\nWANTED: New Flash Essays →",
  "title": "I Want a Do-Over",
  "updatedAt": "2026-04-02T17:54:34.757Z"
}