Time And The Past
Would I kick the butt of my past self?
It’s a Christmas tradition for our family to go to Bob’s Big Boy ® restaurant on Christmas morning for breakfast. This year was no exception.
As I walked into Bob’s a young mother walked out carrying an empty infant seat. Moments later a young man walked by me with the baby. He had shaggy hair and hadn’t shaved in a few days. He was wearing a long black trench coat. In short, he looked like me 15 years ago.
I wanted to turn around and kick his ass. I wanted to tell him to get a real job. I remember the haughty confidence I had back then and I wanted to beat it out of him.
(Sure for all I know he was a stockbroker or a teacher or maybe a youth pastor even, but probably not)
Later in the men’s room I looked around becoming aware of how it needed cleaning. I’ve only started noticing this since I have worked in maintenance. I realized that I hadn’t been in that men’s room for a year. The last time I was in it I was working as a surveyor making almost twice as much without my wife having to work.
I wondered what I might be thinking next year in that men’s room and if I might have the urge to beat myself up still.
The past doesn’t exist except in memories and records. At least that what I say. But it does survive in the way that it permanently shapes us. We are our past. That kid in the black coat that was me 15 year ago made some questionable choices. But for what it’s worth it all made me who I am today and I must live with it. I must make the right choices today so that my future self doesn’t want to clean my clock.
As I walked into Bob’s a young mother walked out carrying an empty infant seat. Moments later a young man walked by me with the baby. He had shaggy hair and hadn’t shaved in a few days. He was wearing a long black trench coat. In short, he looked like me 15 years ago.
I wanted to turn around and kick his ass. I wanted to tell him to get a real job. I remember the haughty confidence I had back then and I wanted to beat it out of him.
(Sure for all I know he was a stockbroker or a teacher or maybe a youth pastor even, but probably not)
Later in the men’s room I looked around becoming aware of how it needed cleaning. I’ve only started noticing this since I have worked in maintenance. I realized that I hadn’t been in that men’s room for a year. The last time I was in it I was working as a surveyor making almost twice as much without my wife having to work.
I wondered what I might be thinking next year in that men’s room and if I might have the urge to beat myself up still.
The past doesn’t exist except in memories and records. At least that what I say. But it does survive in the way that it permanently shapes us. We are our past. That kid in the black coat that was me 15 year ago made some questionable choices. But for what it’s worth it all made me who I am today and I must live with it. I must make the right choices today so that my future self doesn’t want to clean my clock.
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