Another self

I invariably experience an uncanny feeling whenever I read my previous writings-- emails, journal entries, poems, and essays. I do not quite know how to define the odd feeling, much less explain it. Suffice it to say that the experience is akin to being haunted by ghosts-- in my case, the ghosts of memory, of childhood, of innocence, of perished emotions. And it too provokes a sense of regret, regret at what could have been and regret that what must be must be. At times there is amazement and even consternation ("I wrote this?! What bloody crap!") which is what I feel when I read the poems of my early adolescence; their rhymes that once seemed ingenious now seem inadequate and contrived; their veiled romanticism seems hollow. It seems plausible that I once believed those things which I wrote in my slightly unruly hand, but their author is now far removed from me. In a sense, I envy her, her ability to write, and her pride in her work. I remember that she had aspirations of winning awards. She was not entirely convinced of the failures of the writers she admired, not having any basis of failure nor any experience of utter rejection. Now, however, the possibility of failure is very real to me (Math 17) and I no longer have time to write, even though I still find time to read. I read, perhaps not only to escape the monotony of my life and the drudgery of academics and duties, but also to find out how writers write. I envy that other self, who wrote poems during class and hid her work whenever the teachers came near, who declaimed poems with vim and imperiousness (with character, she would say), who hid her contempt from her sanctimonious teachers, all the while nodding yes while a dagger glinted in the darkness of her rebellious heart. I miss that other self; I want her back. While I still pretend complicity in order to avoid conflict, I cannot deny that the most important thing-- the will to write-- is slowly ebbing from me. My consciousness is fatigued, my perspective jaded. I wish for that other self to return and refresh my identity. I am myself, but somehow I do not feel like myself. I rarely dream, and waking is hateful to me; I am plagued with doubts I cannot assuage nor resolve. I feel old. And although that other self was naive and too confident of herself, I wish her back. She still returns on occasion, but it would be better if she returned to share this shell with this other self, and yet many other selves, and many others to come. For in truth, there will always nag at the edge of consciousness other selves, of which you will always be uncertain. You cannot know too much about these other selves; their loves, their rages, their dreams will be different from yours. They will be part of you, and you part of them, yet in your separateness you will remain immiscible in one another. And each will take turns in arising from disuse or long sleep, and die when they have outlived their object to be. They are the dreams you relinquished, the children of your impulses, the product of your perceptions, the silent witnesses to your deceptions and victories. I wonder at these my other selves, and perhaps, that is why the feeling is so uncanny-- that of the past awakening, of memories unfolding, resurrecting themselves despite their death by my volition; that glimpse of another self, the life of another hour taking shape in another. I mourn my blight, I mourn myself through these, my other selves.