If I could, in some magical event, talk to myself from a few years ago, I would like to tell him some things.
I hope you don’t get what you want in life. I hope your dreams are broken and shattered into nothingness before you even have a chance to try. I’d tell him it was better than having them in reach, in approach, in the palm of your hand, barely; it was better than watching them slip through the gaps in your fingers. Dreams once broken cannot be dreamt again without being reminded of the shrapnel lodged in the heart.
Given how I remember myself, he would not take too kindly to it. Perhaps, he would be offended. An argument about how we made our own luck would ensue, and he would be right, of course. We are rarely wrong, just out of touch, out of flow with time. When speaking, we could not know which of our words would come back to us, in what form, or way. Life has a peculiar way to show all of us are eventually wrong.
I hope you learn to forgive yourself. When I say this, he would probably ask me what for, and I would tell him you’ll know when the time comes, but when it comes, I hope you don’t take as long as I did. I hope you make time for everything. When I say this, he would tell me how he always makes time for everyone. Knowing his response beforehand, I would let out a chuckle and a sigh and ask him to make some for himself, too.
I hope you learn to watch the sunlit, auburn leaves fluttering in the wind. I hope you learn to savour it. I hope you find the time to sit down and read—not to find new insight, but to enjoy it, to enjoy words.
I hope you laugh a little more, and I hope you don’t forget you are still early. There is more, so much more, so much left to see, to feel. Stay away from ledges, I would tell him, both real and those in your head. Walk carefully, I would tell him, especially toward oncoming traffic in a city you’ve still not been to yet. I hope when the time comes, you find your footing.
I’m sure he will tell me he knows all this, that I should leave if I have nothing more to say, that he can’t waste more time. I would laugh. Lastly, I would tell him, I hope you learn patience…
…but life will teach it to you anyway.