As the New Year swirls into being- I find myself going through a different process in time entirely. I’m not setting big intentions for my future self.
I’m revisiting the adolescent me- the one who listened to Broken Social Scene on the drive to school in her Catholic uniform. The one described by a friend recently as “happy with a cig in her hand anticipating the next shenanigan on a possible horizon.”
While I spend time with the adolescent me- I honor her hardness. A deep and curious resiliency. I honor her softness. How she burned with a desire to be seen.
I honor what she taught me. To laugh and to create laughter is medicine. To reveal and to be revealed to is medicine. To ask another question is a divine map. To be fearless in the asking, in the giving, in the taking.
I stretch back through the years to find her, I tap her on the shoulder as she walks down Prince Street in Lancaster City, she turns to look at me.
For a moment, I wonder if she’ll be horrified to see how settled we’ve become- how simple today is. But she isn’t disappointed at all. As our eyes lock, I can see how proud she is- how relieved to know there’s a safe place waiting for her.
Maybe that was the source of her resiliency all along- this future self and the safe place I built for us. How we somehow always knew we would end up here.
No, I’m not setting big intentions for my future self today. Today, I am dancing through time with an eighteen year old me.
~*~ I am her future self. ~*~
on loop
Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl by Broken Social Scene