My past and me

Now
I am your success story
Your example
Your role model
You pay to hear my wisdom
How can this be?

Then
I am broken
Afraid
A lost cause
Example of what not to be
A cautionary tale
A mistake
A fallen thing
A tragic thing
Hopeless
Futureless
Yet here I am.

I look back
I find that other I
There she is
There I am
‘Come with me’
I reach out my hand down the years
Connecting, just.

I hold her
I am you
You are me
She buries her sorrow in my chest
And we become whole.
Tragedy and triumph together
She is with me and I am with her
Reconciled.
Not fixed but learning.