Exploring possibility beyond the theoretical psychoanalysis nudge to find and nurture the inner child, I wondered if the child I have been would possess respect for the adult I have become. Could the glory filled, martial dreams of youth accept their fate in love and faith? If I remind the child of mistakes, he may listen. I want to plead with the child to forgive his fate. To not accept it as an end, but perceive it as progress.
"Let life be an event rather than a process." The wise young self might say.
Certainly, listening to the muffled whims of youth is subjective, careful methodology. It is important to take care, be delicate, to seek the ability to find magic. Knowing this demands respect. It means you remembered the promise.
I wonder what my fourteen year old self might say to me if we had the chance. Sitting across a table from ourselves, at the bus stop, waiting for the other. He might say:
"I don't know what I want to be when I grow up, but it sure isn't that.
No, it wasn't. I'm trying to try. Never failing to fail. But I still believe... I have not forgotten hope or dreams. I agree the dreams have faded amidst the fabricated gray carpeted walls of cubie world. I assure you, I am aware of the magic of time between sleep and awake. Still I receive clues of our mission, only the frequency of the broadcast depends on overcast days. I have faith, I have not given up.
If I kept up this line of thinking my fourteen year old self might pity me. I would try to express how it all turns out right in the end, but that might be a lie. He might not care. I attempt to recall the emotions of my youth with futile desire. I remember the meek sorrow for myself and the world. I know too the joy of good humor and literature found. These mustered memories are not thy true self of fourteen, NAY!, I was a poet for longing.
Back then, I would only let it show in glimpses. I didn't want to go over the top, be judged or prescribed medication. The angst was a mere hiccup of the indigestion of my self. That year, my wisdom grew clouded with reality and I decided not to understand.
Evolved.
I chose to read with voracious delight. I went to the museum on the el with a sweet, big bosomed girl with an exotic name, Marina. How envious I've become of adolescence. This is why my former self feels pity. The understanding had sprouted:
I would rather look back, but mystery of forward is the game to be solved.
A younger self of childhood is a better meeting. Curiosity and shy humor outweigh skinny frame of pale skin. He asks the obvious,
Are you happy?
My perspective is too skewed to provide an honest answer and the proverbial philosophy rumbles within. I want to say that I have lived, and living has provided happiness, but I couldn't pay attention. I was too lost in the sea of potential. I still am. I know because of something I wrote to myself when I was five. Looking ever back I discovered the message the most important to my progression; in backwards letters, on the faded orange construction paper it reads,
uoY fo duorp m'I
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