i meet myself in dreams sometimes.
past-me sits across the table, twenty-two and terrified. still believes in right answers. still thinks pain is optional. two sugars in the coffee, splash of milk. i remember that sweetness.
future-me leans against the window. empty hands, easy smile. knows things i'm still learning the hard way.
we're the same chord played across octaves. past, present, future. three notes that shouldn't harmonize but somehow do.
past-me's wounds are still pink and tender. rejection letters crumpled in desk drawers. that one relationship that ended badly. dreams that died young. each failure still bleeding.
i want to tell them it gets better. want to explain how scars become stories, how pain becomes perspective. but past-me needs these wounds. they're homework. they're becoming me.
future-me has scars i haven't earned yet. laugh lines from jokes i haven't heard. wisdom bought with currency i haven't collected. they watch me with this look, like watching someone solve a puzzle you finished years ago.
the conversation flows weird. past-me asks about success, about making it, about mattering. future-me asks about lunch, about sleep, about that sunset last tuesday. i'm caught between, translating desperation into contentment, ambition into acceptance.
past-me thought mediocrity was death. chased greatness like it owed them money. future-me found infinity in tuesday afternoons, discovered that being good beats being great. i'm learning to want less and love more.
time does this thing with perspective. past-me's certainties look adorable now, like a kid in their parent's suit. future-me's peace feels impossible, like trying to imagine enjoying vegetables when you're five.
we leave fingerprints on each other. past-me's hunger echoes in my ambition. my questions ripple through future-me's answers. we're all editing the same story, just working on different chapters.
past-me would think i've given up. sold out. settled.
future-me knows i'm still fighting, just smarter about which battles matter.
i disappoint one to become the other.
memory makes everyone a ghost. past-me lives vivid in my head, more real than my reflection. future-me exists in possibility, in maybe, in hope. present-me floats between them, barely real, barely here, learning to love the liminal.
the dream fades like it always does. morning light through the window. present tense reasserting itself.
my coffee's gone cold. i drink it anyway.