Bathroom Monologue: What Is Your Reason For Going Back In Time?

“I’m a teacher, and a strict one, because I know what they say about kids is largely bullshit. I grew up very ambitious, very smart, top of my class because I worked hard. I didn’t lead the debate team, but I remember being the linchpin that took us to the State finals. I always stood up for the right thing, whether it was the vegan option in the cafeteria or making sure my sister wasn’t alone the time she broke her arm and spent all Christmas break in the hospital. But a month ago I was talking to my sister, really, arguing with her, and she said I was never there for her, and barely remembers me visiting her. And on an impulse, I started looking up some of my old journals, and they’re kind of shallow. I think of myself as having once been smarter, more virtuous, the best of youth that I claim I don’t see in any of the kids in my classrooms. So I need to go back to see if I really was any of those things, or if I’ve been holding people to an imaginary self my whole adult life. If I’ve been beating myself up, too, for being only a good person when I should have lived up to great potential. I could be better, but I need to know if I’m working to return to being a better person, or to become one for the first time. I’m guessing time travel is the quickest possible journey of self discovery.”