The Shock of the Old

When I first started writing Do-Over!, I thought it would be a bit of a lark.  The idea of a grown man standing in line with kindergartners in the lunch line or playing freeze tag with sixth graders seemed inherently funny and absurd, and even though I experiences twinges of embarrassment and frequent thoughts of “what am I doing standing in the lunch line with kindergartners,” I didn’t expect any major emotional tsunamis to wash over me.  But I’ve written enough books to have known better – I should have expected the unexpected because as a writer, you always get more than you bargained for, and that’s part of the pleasure of being a writer.  In this case, my emotions and memories would make little sneak attacks.  I’d be showing a picture I’d drawn to my teacher and all of a sudden, I’d feel my eyes welling.  Now what was that about?!  I’d wonder, but there was always a logical source for this sudden burst of emotion – a powerful memory or the thought of someone I loved and missed. I was constantly surprised by how emotionally fulfilling my do over’s felt – sitting in my old bedroom from my teen years or walking across campus at my high school in Tennessee I hadn’t visited in 30 years.  It wasn’t simply nostalgia, though I suppose there was some of that.  I really did feel as though I were reliving the past during my do over’s, reliving the past as a grown man, and not simply remembering it.  That produced some powerful feelings, akin perhaps to slaying a dragon in your dreams.  
 
The other big surprise in my do-overs was the fact that the great majority of adults AND children I encountered during the project supported what I was doing.  While some of the children were naturally a little perplexed (asking me, for instance, how many grades I had flunked and who was picking me up after school!), they mostly accepted me.  The kindergartners in fact kept asking about me long after I’d finished my kindergarten do over.  And one teen at my school in Tennessee told me that he wanted to be able to do the same thing when he reached my age.  There was something immensely satisfying in tapping into the all-too-human desire to want a second chance.