First person singular, first person plural, or third person singular?

If we listened better to our past selves, our current selves might have an easier time of things. I don't mean "past selves" in the I-was-a-seventeenth-century-slave-girl-Shirley-McClain sense; I mean, THAT GIRL we were yesterday, THAT GIRL ten years ago, or THAT GIRL in 1988. THAT GIRL had life experiences that should inform her current decision-making process.


We picked up cicadas, we swam in oceans without fearing sharks , and we dared to think we might become an architect, a paleontologist, or an inventor when we grew up. We fell, and we got back up; we tried things, we failed, and we tried more things. But we forget about our former selves. We let her ideas and dreams become pieces of nostalgia, and her lessons become quaint. Oh look, remember when... But that girl was brave, more than she realized then and more than we realize now.


Two years ago at this time, I was figuring out how to quit my job. Depressed, unsure of myself and any of the decisions I'd made (after all, my decisions had led me there), it was only after I gave myself permission to fail - to have failed - that I finally found some peace. Leaving that job was one of the hardest and best things I'd ever had to do. It's a lesson that I have to remind myself to carry with me: next time, I'll remember, the world doesn't end, and life won't crash to a halt.

We owe that girl to talk to her every once in a while. See what she has to say about our current state of affairs.