Dreaming a Poem

So last night, I dreamt, in the vein of The Time Traveller's Wife , that I travelled back in time to visit myself as a twelve year old. I had such an incredibly intimate and powerful connection to this young me in our conversation, and we were so grateful to have been able to meet. We cried and talked for as long as we had. I couldn't figure out why I didn't remember the experience of meeting the 27 year-old version of myself, since it must have happened to me when I was 12. But the fog and irrationality of dreaming was negligible. I didn't care that it made no sense. I/we just cared that it was happening.

I find the idea of connecting with ones past and future selves so compelling. I see mini-manifestations of this even in how I prepare for the next day. Should I clean my room and kitchen so that I can wake up to a friendly environment tomorrow? Or might I indulge my current self, and in effect screw my future self? My decisions vary. On a larger scale, I have even written letters to myself that I'm not allowed to open until certain dates, in a sense attempting to reach forward to offer grace and kindness to my future self, and wish good things for her.

Artists seem to have a particular advantage in this relationship-with-self across time, as they have their work to look back on. But it seems like such a profound thing to me. Everyone should be able to experience it. I hate feeling like I disappear over time and become something else, even though this is a good and inevitable process of life. It's like writing a poem, and instead of saving each draft, you just click save after each revision, replacing the previous version. And after all the revisions have been conducted, you wonder how the poem read in the beginning. It was undeniably a completely different poem after changing the verbs and line breaks so many times. And cutting out stanzas that didn't move. And adjusting the tone to be more consistent. And re-writing & re-writing the conclusion after so many critiques from colleagues. I mean, how tragic not to have each draft that emerged along the way, but only the final product. That is how life feels to me. And I want to preserve drafts of myself so badly. Writing & art-ing are ways. But there must be others too.

Maybe I'll do scholarly research & write a dissertation on people's connections with their historical and future selves. That would be incredible. If you have an account, will you tell me?