My past self watches over me now like Batman watches over Gotham. Meaning, I base a lot of my decisions on how the 16 year old me would view the 33 year old me. And right now, he’s been yelling at me quite a bit. Today, he’s grabbing me by the back of the head and slamming it repeatedly into my desk, screaming about how dare I give in to people. Every day, I sit here, with sixteen year old long haired black t-shirt and jeans wearing me laughing, cajoling, chiding.

Once, I met a class of kids about what I do, and they said, how do you keep from selling out? My answer was that, well, selling out gets different as you get older. You buy a house. You get married. You have to smile through shitty teeth to people you hate, from time to all the time, just to keep your nose above the sewer water.

16 year me has no idea what I’m talking about. Then I remember, hey, 16 year old me couldn’t even get a date t save his life. So whatever, kid.

Photo – N
Words – S