To possibly anger a younger self in Scott

Very aware of my mortality these days, I have been looking at my possessions and trying to decide what I truly want or need. I have a box of Manila envelopes with various things in them such as house, car, and taxes. I have envelopes of old photos and negatives from the time when people used cameras in that manner. It seems so long ago that I used a camera that had film in it. Over the years I have converted negatives and photos to digital images. I don’t know why I keep those photos now in paper. When I have looked through them, I’ve been amazed at how many photos of a dog I had. When I think of disposing of these photos because they have copies in digital format, there’s a voice inside me that seems younger, probably from that time when I made the photos arguing for me not to do it. You don’t have a say anymore. You had your time. But it’s like having another person inside that wants to argue.

I have what I consider to be poems from over 50 years ago in a folder. I used to have journals that I kept for years in notebooks. I think I threw them away last year. I remember somebody arguing with me another younger self about keeping them, but I got exasperated and told them I can’t read my own fucking handwriting from that time. I did not like you at that time. That rating was total bullshit. I don’t want to revisit it. The same with the poems I wrote in high school and shortly thereafter. I was looking at some of them today and it was definitely a different person that wrote them. Again, a younger self inside wanted to argue about it. No, it was only your ego that said you were good. I don’t feel anything reading what you wrote so long ago. I find it a little bit embarrassing that we were. You thought you were so damn good. What a foolish kid that you would scribble stupid little poems and hand them to a girl in high school or drop them off in her locker through event in front. Cringe worthy. But I wonder if I throw those many poems away to write slowly in a landfill would I hurt myself? Would it be like throwing some of my life force away? Some of my own flesh because the energy of my mind once made that so important to me. I look at my old writings as being absolute crap now. So much of it sounded self pitying. But that was me in high school and shortly thereafter. I’m not superstitious, but there’s this weird thing in me that feels like if I throw something that was once so important to me into the garbage would it be like carving some of my flesh and throwing it away?

At times I do feel likethe selves I once was are still inside me. To see them is to hold one mirror up to another and to see what seems like infinity of self of my image in that but change changing so much over the years inside and out. Sometimes I think I hear a younger self talking to me and I wonder OK what year are you from?

One of my favorite fantasies is that of taking the mind I have now and putting it into a teen self and changing the trajectory of my life. Would this self with that young self be in constant conflict or would the old self of now dominate? Would one try to destroy the other? Would it be like two brothers fighting? Or would this old self simply take over at one of the times I nearly died? I like that idea. OK, nice body we’ve got here. Let’s live it without the stupidity of youth. But damn those hormones would still raise havoc.