"Noggin"

This is the book I most recently finished reading and it's by John Corey Whaley. It is about a kid who gets a "body transplant" and how he is trying to transition back into life. Before the kid gets the transplant, his head is chopped off, and frozen while waiting for the transplant. Five years go by waiting. Part of the twist to the story is that when the kid wakes up from the transplant, time has only stood still for himself. Everyone else is five years older, but he is still just a teenage boy, who has to go back to high school without any friends, etc. Everyone from his life before, including his best friend and his girlfriend, has already moved on to other things in life.

This has me thinking: If I got to keep my entire head, my brain, and my personality as is, but had to transplant an entire different body, whose or what type of body would I choose? I think it's pretty safe to guess that most people would probably choose someone more fit, better looking, maybe taller or shorter too depending on your current situation, and probably someone a little better...shall we say..."equipped." But really, how much would all that matter since in our heads, we are still the same person. If I am a lazy person now, would having a more fit body automatically make me want to get up and go to the gym more, or would I just stick to my bad habits and eat crappy food, gain all the weight back and then be dissatisfied again? Or, would you intentionally keep those bad habits so that your body wouldn't feel so foreign? I would want to find someone who has nice, well manicured nails, but that doesn't mean that I've all of a sudden kicked the habit of biting my nails.

On another note, how would your significant other handle the change? Yes, we all love to believe that the people in our lives are ultimately there because of our personalities and not just because of looks, but I am a strong believer that looks are a big part of the attraction to each other as well. What if your significant other didn't want you to have bigger boobs, or wanted you to have smaller hips, or whatever the case may be. How do you handle that as a couple? Would you let the significant other choose your body since they are they one who you want to be attracted to you. Would you be offended if your significant other was too eager to find you a different body?

Now, on to the more emotional aspect of this. How would you cope with being basically frozen in time for five years. You wake up and everybody else, including your family and closest friends have carried on living their lives, finishing high school, getting jobs, etc. You feel like you've blinked and woken up from a little nap, only to find that no one else is where you left them. How would you survive going back to high school without the people at your side who helped you survive high school in the first place. How would you manage seeing the person you love, being engaged or married to someone else? How would you manage being the exact same person you were five years ago, meanwhile since everyone else is changed, they expect you to be a changed person too. I think it's only natural to slowly fall into other people's expectations of you, and to have to fight your way into holding true to yourself, but this fight would be even harder when every one is already five years ahead of you. 

How would you handle being only part of the person you spent so many years trying to become in the first place?

-Linds