DEAR FUTURE SELF,

I was walking backwards in a crazy dream and I saw everyone else walking forward. It looks like I’d missed the point somewhere and had to speed up. Even the old tapes were playing in reverse though, confusing every conversation I’d ever had. I felt like I was turned inside out, headed the wrong way on two divided road, crashing into life like it was a glass mirror and cutting myself.

Then again, it was Monday and Monday’s aren’t exactly my favorite day. Hello.

I woke up, just like that, and I was on auto pilot, witling away in the waiting room, waiting to see my psychiatrist again. She was my oxygen supply and, the truth of it is, I needed her like my own blood.

Laura laughed, “I knew you’d come to me.” She said in a monotone. I wasn’t sure if the dream had begun or ended. Maybe Laura was some kind of phantasm I’d created in order to put the pieces of my life together. What was real anyway?

I inhaled the second hand smoke from her cigarette and said “So, where else could I possibly be, Laura?” Laura laughed in a chilling way that crawled under my skin and infested my brain. She was the expert though and I needed answers from her.

I compared her to a fortune teller and figured she wasn’t one to turn up the wrong cards in the dilemna. I could count on her for it. It’s not that she was even really a doctor-doctor. She was SPIRITUAL and yet haunting, like the feeling I had, and she was my sole addiction. My dependence on her was like a daily fix and her presence in my life was a dangerous drug.

“Run past your fears and come to a sudden stop,” she said, advising me, as she poured herbal tea into two cups and handed me one. “For you see, you must stop and wait for the color of life’s light to turn green before you make a move. Otherwise you’ll get way ahead of yourself.”

Something was telling me that Laura’s advice meant I should quickly assess the circumstances of my life and leave any major decisions on hold. The black clouds building up outside of Laura’s office home confirmed the words I listened to.

“You’re headed for major changes.” She added.

Laura’s chameleon eyes were darker now and tears were building up in the rain. She’d stepped outside with me and it seems like this 62-year old woman was more than clairvoyant. She controlled the universe. Why was I drawn to her like a magnet when I hated needing her?

It’s why I’ve come to you now, future self. Maybe I don’t need some spiritual, haunting doctor to teach me right from left. I think I just need to see twenty years from now and hear what you have to say to me. I hope you’ll say you waited for the light to turn green and walked forward. There’s no sense in walking backwards in a dream.