When I Visited My Future Self

Nicole Justine Reid

——-When I visited my Future Self, she opened the door like she knew I was coming.
——-Moments before, I had stood outside her door, wrapped in the foggy mist that circled me in silent stillness, poised to knock, heart beating hesitantly. She lived in an apartment in what seemed to exist somewhere in France. It was hard to tell these things in these magical hours; the details didn’t matter. Until they did, later, somehow.
——-My knuckles grazed the blue painted door, just under the address numbers. I never remember what they are. But I know how to find her.
——-She opened the door in one clean, swift motion. Her hair was wildly natural, long past her shoulders, and had retained the fire color with which I had somewhat linked my identity. I felt a swell of silent pride that I still hadn’t gone gray, at least not yet. I noticed the remarkable ease with which she inhabited her body, even standing there in the doorway, barefoot. Her clothes were purple and turquoise and brown, comfortable and soft and stretchy, somehow always changing. It was hard to nail her down, even in what she wore. I let it go.
——-Without a word, she pulled me into an embrace and held me there, in the door frame. Awkward, I struggled a bit to stay, feeling like it was too much of a gift to receive; we hadn’t really ever hugged, which, when I thought about it, was odd. But there was something about her energy that gave me permission to sink into it now, and I melted from the outside to my core. She held me in a way I had never been held before. My entire being collapsed into trust.
——-Suddenly and surprisingly, something within me began to cry: I didn’t know how much I needed a hug from myself until then. We sank into the moment together; me, trusting her, her, holding space, holding me. Inside me, a whirl of unidentified emotions flooded every cavern of my being. Then sensing this rare, expansive space, they began to untangle themselves of their own accord, one thread, one knot at a time. The world outside didn’t exist, except as a far away reference that I was still standing there, on her doorstep, learning something new. It didn’t take long to feel thoroughly released. Process moves quicker when there is no rushing. She didn’t try to change my emotions; she just let them be.
——-We pulled apart naturally when we felt complete, and she guided me through the threshold. It felt so intimate. She seemed unfazed, like she lived her life this way.
——-I stepped into the first room—white furry rugs, white walls splashed with art, a modern sort of kind. I felt somewhere inside myself that I liked it and somewhere inside that I didn’t, that this wasn’t me. Confusion pulled at me, but I didn’t know what to do with it. So, I set it aside and focused my attention on the woman before me. Within me?
——-She crossed over to the sink where the foggy light was pushing through the window, spilling slowly into the room. Green plants hung lazily down into the air, stretching themselves into the light. She leaned against the counter and picked up her warm tea—not hot, not cold; just the way I like it. A calmness emanated from her. It made me squirm. A sudden need to fill the space with my words rushed into me.
——-Full of questions, I gushed forth, no longer hesitant. “Do I marry him?” I asked her, figuring I could peek into my future a bit. What would she tell me? Did I really want to know?
——-She smiled, stirring her tea in her teacup, a quirky, colorful china of porcelain, delicate and outlandish. “I have found that the only way to know true love is to do it,” she stated. “You grow more that way.”
——-She had this way of answering questions with statements close to what I was asking, not quite answering the question. Or maybe she answered my questions exactly. I wasn’t sure. She confused me sometimes.
——-“Is he here?” I pressed. Is he in my future? I meant.
——-“Sure, he could be,” she said, shrugging ever so slightly, shrugging off any form of urgency. And suddenly, he appeared, walked right into the room toward me in that way he walks, sauntering with his head moving in rhythm side to side.
——-Immediately, I realized that the very center of me was pushing him away and didn’t want him there. Not now, not here. Something didn’t feel right. As if on cue, he vanished behind the door I thought was a closet, behind the door where the others were. How did I know they were there? All my loved ones, behind that door, spilling out into the nothingness beyond. My mind had conjured them up, forced them to be here out of fear that they wouldn’t be in my future otherwise. But I didn’t know where they belonged in this moment so behind that door is where they stayed. I panicked slightly—what did this mean?
——-“This place is just for us,” she said.
——-A wave of understanding flooded through me. It didn’t mean the end of us, him and me, or them and me. It meant the strengthening of us, her and me. A whisper of breath released from my lips. I started to relax a bit, letting this new knowledge sink in.
——-“Come, let me show you something,” she said, putting her teacup down.
——-She took my left hand with her right, pulling me gently. Her hand was cool and smooth and calming. She held my palm with a gentle firmness—compassion mixed with purpose. This is me, I thought. I am her.
——-We walked through a short hallway to the left, around the corner, and into a yoga studio with an exercise machine. I always wanted a yoga studio at home! I thought to myself, smiling happily that this meant somehow that I would have one someday.
——-But I don’t like gym machines, I thought. How weird.
——-Reading my mind she said, “I have found that it is good to be open to things. You never know what you may or may not like in the future.” I chewed on that a bit. I was here for wisdom.
——-I pondered our surroundings. The room was cool and dark, a tiny bit of light spilling on to the new hardwood floors from between the soft curtains. I soaked it all in, whatever “it” was. Time moves differently here. A moment is an eternity; an eternity, a moment. Transitions are awkward and smooth at the same time.
——-In what felt to be exactly the right moment, we walked back out to the main room, the room with the colorful art and the white walls and floor. A bookshelf filled with books in spines of many colors waited patiently next to the couch. I wondered if any of her books were on there. If I had actually become a published author.
——-Without speaking, she turned to face me and pressed her hand on my heart. Uncomfortable yet again with the silence and the intimacy, I filled the gap with a quest for explanation, a surface understanding of what was happening.
——-“Are you a healer?” I ventured.
——-“Of sorts,” she replied, and smiled, looking deeply into me. “I heal us.”
——-I desperately wanted to remember this moment, to remember all of it. I felt the tide of anxiety rising inside me. I needed to write this down! To record this somehow!
——-“Stop struggling so hard to remember,” she said simply. “You will always know what you need exactly at the moment you need it. It will come to you. Like you came to me.”
——-So I burst out what I had thought when I walked in: “I don’t like your decor!” It was something I would never say aloud, but the urge had been so great that I followed it. This place stripped away all my censors.
——-Her face burst into gentle amusement as an honest and happy laugh gushed from her throat. “Oh really? That’s okay.” She smiled.
——-I was suddenly struck by how confident I had become in my future; how I didn’t take things personally. How I left room for others to be themselves, to have their own opinions. How I gave myself permission to share what I was thinking, too. I stared at her in awe, a happy awareness replacing the patches of inferiority that rose up when I compared myself to her. I realized that there was no sense in comparing the beginning of a journey to the end; the beginning learns from the end, the end builds her foundation on the beginning. She was me, once. Maybe she had become this way through trial and error. Or by listening to herself. By listening to me.
——-I felt better about myself in that moment, like I mattered now, just as I am: awkward, searching, needing definition.
——-I felt the pull of time, of this moment almost stretched to it’s capacity: Our visit was ending for today. It did this suddenly, randomly, each time, like the visit itself was its own entity who decided when she wanted to depart. At least I was getting used to it.
——-Dazed, I just kinda left, floated out without a formal goodbye or closure. Social etiquette was different when interacting with yourself. Or was it? Again, I didn’t know. But I found I didn’t need to because nothing was ruined; everything felt okay.
——-As I floated out, her spirit whispered to me: “There are no endings here.”
——-Later, I found that I remembered all of it. I couldn’t help but write it down. I had a feeling that our story, this intersection of self, was pressed on to a few slim pages, hugged by other stories on that bookshelf next to her couch.
——-And if not, I thought maybe I could put it there, as a gift to her. Maybe she would want to read it someday. Maybe she already had.

About This Story: You can call this story fiction—but it isn’t. This story is based on a experience I had in a yoga class during the final pose, legs up the wall. I fell into a deep altered consciousness and went on an entire journey. Right after, I wrote it down, in the parking lot, before driving home. Just recently, my soul nudged me to re-read this specific story, and I felt very moved noticing that the essence (and even some of the specifics) of who I was becoming then is who I am now, over ten years later. We are always evolving. And, we can get glimpses into who we are becoming. My soul nudged me to share this story here.

First published in Carry the Light, Vol. II: Stories, poems and essay from the San Mateo County Fair (2013). Honorable Mention for Short Story: General Fiction.

Image collage by Nicole Justine Reid