You know that feeling you get when you wish you could hit “save” on a moment, but life just keeps marching forward? Like you wish you could pick up your kid—Jettie, in my case—and click Save Game, then later come back and load up any version you wanted? A 6-week-old Jettie with her tiny fists and that brand-new cry that split my heart open. Or a 2-year-old Jettie with sticky hands and a squeal that made the world feel alive. Or the 5-year-old Jettie with too many questions and a giggle that sounded like a sparkler?
I said something like this to a friend the other day: “I’d love to have all the versions of her here right now. The 6-week-old, the 2-year-old, the 36-month-old, the 5-year-old, the just-yesterday version. I’d love them all stacked up like Russian nesting dolls, all of them somehow present at once.” And saying it out loud made me stop and think—what if that’s not just a cute sentiment, but a real desire to live outside of time?
See, Einstein’s Block Universe theory says all moments in time exist at once—past, present, future—like rooms in a mansion that’s always there. It’s just that our consciousness is stuck wandering through them one at a time, as if the universe only lets us see one corridor at a time. But every room, every corridor, every version of us and of our loved ones is still there, waiting to be revisited if only we had the right key.
Maybe that’s why I love photos and videos and half-forgotten stories. They’re like keys—or maybe cheat codes—to earlier levels of the game. Even though I can’t hold that 6-week-old Jettie anymore, I can close my eyes and walk into that room, feel her small head in the crook of my elbow, smell the powder and the milk. And maybe that’s what it means to love deeply: to carry the entire mansion with you, to let all those rooms breathe inside your heart.
In some sense, each version of Jettie is a mirror, reflecting not just her, but me too. The 6-week-old version shows me the 39-year-old me who was terrified and smitten, learning how to be a dad while wondering if I’d get it right. The 2-year-old version shows me the 41-year-old me who was learning how to let go and let her explore. The 5-year-old version shows me the dad who’s learning to let go even more—who’s discovering that kids aren’t yours to keep but gifts to witness as they bloom. Each room of this mansion has its own lighting, its own furniture, its own version of me standing there with his own set of worries and dreams.
And I wish—like I really, really wish—that I could gather them all together. That I could have a conversation with every Jettie at once, and every me at once. Like a roundtable of selves and her-selves, sharing snacks and telling stories, laughing at how serious we all took ourselves, hugging the versions that needed it most. And in that moment, maybe I’d learn that I don’t have to pick just one. That all the Jetties, all the me’s, are already here, layered like old wallpaper underneath the present moment.
So maybe the Block Universe is real, or maybe it’s just a poetic way of seeing the world. But either way, I’m learning that love doesn’t erase the old rooms. It just builds new ones on top. And the trick is to let yourself wander through the mansion sometimes, even if you can’t stay.
Because love—like a game—might not let you go back and replay every level. But it does let you carry the echoes forward. And maybe that’s enough.