If you ever feel like your past self screwed you over, let me tell you the story of the best prank I’ve ever pulled and the worst prank I’ve ever had pulled on me.
When I started high school, they had us write letters to our future selves as part of the orientation activities.
Smash cut to me reading the letter from my past self as I’m finishing my senior year of high school. The main gist of the letter is “don’t forget about me - and don’t think that I’m any less real than you are. I may not be you anymore, but I existed. I am not just your memory - I am real.” At the very end of the letter, though, is the note: “don’t forget about your gold medal.”
As I was reading that, I thought “what gold medal? I’ve never won a gold medal! What was I going on about??” I wracked my brain for any gold medal, but couldn’t remember anything. After a week or so of nothing turning up, I dismissed it as a cheap dig from my past self about how I’d never won a medal. Whatever.
A year later, I’m moving out of that house, and sorting through a dresser to decide what I want to keep. As I’m digging through the miscellanea, I find a plastic gold medal. “No. Fricking. Way,” I think. I flip the medal over, and what do I see?
I am *still* pissed at how precisely I played into my own hands. I knew I’d forget, apparently, knew I’d be frustrated, and then went so far as to confirm for my future self that this was what I meant. And sure enough: I forgot, I was frustrated, I found the medal, and I was uncertain about it. And I don’t even remember plotting the prank!! Nobody wins here! I was played like a perfectly-tuned fiddle, and nobody wins! I mean, I guess I win - but the me who wins isn’t here to see it! I was replaced by the me who lost! Four years went by, and I still reacted exactly how I would have at the start of it!
Time, and I, am a flat circle.
