Finding old pictures

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Whenever I dig into my old stuff the question always creeps into my head, "What would I tell that kid if I could tell him anything?"
You are going to do OK for yourself but in a quiet, unspectacular way. He (I) already knew that. In fact I took that for granted.
You are going to lose people that mean the world to you and you will never stop grieving for them. I knew that too ( we all do ) but I would have never admitted as much, preferring to only recognize those bitter truths as I was being run over by them.
I suppose I couldn't resist giving some sage advice but I wouldn't listen to myself. I remember making a point of not acting on good advice when dispensed by anyone professing to know what life was really about.
All in all it's a good thing time travel isn't possible. Aside from being freaked out by my wrinkly old self showing up to tell me crap I knew but didn't have the courage to act on, I would have been angered that all the suspense and mystery had just been taken out of life. For all the effort that goes into fiction about jumping back or ahead in time I think it is good that we have to crunch along alone without the aid of a nebbish future self showing up every so often to whine and moan about how I'm so lacking in ambition. I'm peeved at myself right now just for thinking up the thought of it.

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