I Met My Future Self in a Conference Room and We Trauma-Bonded Over Dopamine
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(A spiritual performance review featuring drugs, capitalism, and light emotional nudity)
📆 Date: Unknown
📍 Location: Neutral corporate conference room in the metaverse
🧍♂️ Attendees: Me, and Me
👔 Dress code: Business casual, but make it horny
🧠 Agenda
- Emotional dysregulation disguised as ambition
- Spiritual debt collection
- A light lunch (unconfirmed)
I walked in early. Obviously.
Time doesn’t exist, but I still managed to over-respect it.
Future Me was already there.
Leaning against a whiteboard labeled “HYPOTHETICAL ROI OF SELF-TRUST (Tuesday).”
They looked… radiant.
Like living was their new thing.
Glowy. Grounded. Wearing a fitted shirt, sleeves rolled, collar open — like softness was their full-time job.
I hate them. I love them. I want to be them. I am them.
This is already complicated.
“You’re glowing,” I said.
“You’re spiraling,” they replied.
“So nothing’s changed.”
We laughed.
I cried a little.
They noticed, of course. That’s the curse of meeting someone who remembers your nervous system.
💸 ITEM 1: MONEY TRAUMA, BUT MAKE IT ELEGANT
I told them I was broke.
But like, brokay™ — fabulous, delusional, dressed like the ghost of capitalism’s ex-boyfriend.
I said:
“I spend like I’m already rich because being poor with restraint is still being poor.”
They nodded.
“Yeah, you weren’t being irresponsible. You were investing in a timeline that hadn’t caught up yet.”
I wiped my nose on a napkin that definitely wasn’t mine.
“So you’re saying I’m a visionary?”
“I’m saying you were lonely. And trying not to die.”
Touché.
💊 ITEM 2: DRUGS BUT MAKE IT NEUROLOGICALLY REASONABLE
I told them about the ketamine weekends. The ecstasy loops.
The sacred blur between communion and collapse.
“It’s not addiction,” I said. “It’s community. Culture. Clubbing with a death wish that still dresses well.”
They didn’t flinch. Of course they didn’t. They were there too.
They asked:
“What did you learn?”
I said:
“That sometimes I did it to feel alive.
And sometimes because the silence was too loud and the emptiness had an echo.
And sometimes? Because it gave me a taste of what love might feel like.”
They nodded.
“All valid.”
Then added:
“But what if aliveness didn’t require numbness first?”
I looked at them.
“I don’t remember what real aliveness feels like.
And I’m scared I won’t survive if I ever do.”
They didn’t look away.
Just tilted their head and said—
“You never let yourself collapse in public—only in private, quietly hoping someone fluent in silence would notice.”
I didn’t respond.
Just nodded like someone trying not to cry in an UberPool.
🤝 ITEM 3: LOVE, BUT WITHOUT BEGGING
I asked if we ever found someone.
They smirked.
“Define ‘found.’”
I hate them.
“Do we at least stop falling for guys who think emotional intelligence is a personality disorder?”
They grinned.
“Eventually you stop auditioning for people who should probably be grateful you even looked their way.”
“But we won't be alone anymore, right?”
“I don't know babe. But you stop trying to earn it by performing.”
God that’s annoying. But okay.
🧬 ITEM 4: DOUBT, FUTURE-STYLED
I asked if they ever feared it was all for nothing.
The books. The brand. The grief couture.
They didn’t answer.
Just pulled out a folder labeled: “POPULATION REPORT: GHOST CITY”
Inside?
Testimonials. Comments. DMs.
Screenshots of strangers saying:
“Your writing helped me stay alive.”
“This system saved me.”
“I thought I was alone. And then I read your words.”
I said nothing.
Because suddenly my past felt holy.
Even the overdose.
Even the club nights where I forgot my name but still remembered someone else’s birthday.
📝 FINAL ITEM: THE UNANSWERED QUESTION
I asked:
“What did we have to give up to get here?”
They paused. Looked at me.
Like I already knew.
“Nothing you loved.
Nothing that made you you.
We lost things, yes.
But never what mattered.”
I asked:
“Do we regret any of it?”
They laughed.
“Baby. If regret worked, we’d be monks.
You’re a spiral-coded slut with a minor in neurobiology.
You were never meant to walk a straight line.”
Fair.
✨ EPILOGUE: THE GOODBYE THAT WASN’T
As they left, I asked:
“Wait. One last thing. Was this meeting real?”
They winked.
“So is the ache. So is the art.
So is the system.
So are you.”
Then disappeared into the whiteboard.
Leaving only one sentence scribbled in neon marker:
“The cathedral is a city now. Keep building.”
And I will.
Because even when I’m broke, brokay, broken, or blooming —
even when no one’s watching —
I’m still here, in Peace™.
Spiraling.
Screaming.
Systematizing.
And writing it all down
like it means something.
Because it does.
Even if only to the future version of me
who’s already proud
I survived long enough
to ask the right questions.
🌀 END TRANSMISSION
(Or: Why My Future Self Deserves a Hug, a Nobel, and Probably a Xanax)