This is a Funeral for the Potentiality of my Past Selves
A bit more self-confidence here – a touch less there,
Another question to the person at the party,
A different answer in the interview.
My potential selves are like sisters,
trailing behind me on the path I’ve forged.
Every step casts off another skin.
Every choice I make kills a potential future, snipping a thread that would lead me down another path. These deaths never register in the moment. It is only when I am looking back that I notice the corpses that line the journey from A to B. Some of these future selves are trivial duplicities, undistinguishable from my current self, but others are wildly different. They deserve a proper burial and a proper wake.
Sometimes, I feel their ghosts around me. As I sit down to breakfast on a Saturday morning and see the face of a boy, whose friendship could easily have led to more, pop up on my Instagram feed. I hadn’t realised it at the time. And if I had, what would have happened? How would my path have altered to accommodate an extra lover? Would I have been different? Or would I still be the same me I am now, still romanticising the past?
When I tell my partner about the boy who pulled my hair and spat in my face, I wonder who I would be if I had left that relationship sooner. The fallout of these experiences undoubtedly still affects me, like glass shards that make me wince with every step.
I think about the plans I cancelled in favour of something else. The times I said yes, but meant no. The times I said no, but wished I was brave enough to say yes.
I think about the self who squeezed out one more gram of determination and held on to her dreams for a moment longer. Where is she now? I imagine the lessons she learned and the people she met. The failures she experienced that made her resilient enough to climb bigger mountains. What new realms did she discover that I will never see?
I think about the moments that, with hindsight, sealed off a future. The moments that closed one door firmly shut, or kicked another one so far open that it would have been impossible to resist the pull of what was on the other side.
To the self who borrowed an extra book at the library when she was twelve, and was irrevocably changed by what she read. To the self who embraced the ‘fake it till you make it’ mantra, and turned an anxiety-inducing sixth form experience into two years of self-development and friendship. To the self who desperately wanted to participate in a Roller Derby World Cup, and refused to let her anxiety (and fear of breaking an ankle) get in the way of seriously pursuing it. To the self who was as chatty and outgoing around strangers as she was around her closest friends.
This funeral is for you.
I am under no illusion that my potential selves are all better than me. This funeral is also for the self who didn’t walk away from an argument and said something she regrets. The self who refused the taxi home and carried on drinking for too long. The self that didn’t trust her instincts and second guessed herself on an essay, a job offer, a relationship.
When I look back over my life, I see my potential selves littered around my memories. They are snake skins that have been shed. They are scattered around every decision, like seeds left to germinate in the fertile ground of my imagination. As I mourn these discarded selves, I find myself learning from their triumphs and their failures. I take courage from their successes and grow self-aware from their downfalls.
My self still bears
the phantom bruises of a relationship continued for too long,
the scars from a dream suppressed,
the open wounds from my lifetime of regrets.
But
In my mourning i grow to love
that possibilites that will never be,
the learnings from my past that fuel my future,
the potential-self sisters who accompany me.
Written by Jasmin Perry
By day, I work in the real estate sector. I'm also the founder of Weston Writer's Nights and was chosen as one of Rife Magazine's 24 under 24 for 2019. I'm passionate about the environment, creative pursuits and spending as much time in nature as possible.