Dawn light glints off Lady Bird Lake as I pause on the wooden boardwalk, breath even, heart quiet from my morning Qigong. Earlier I biked its full circumference—a ritual to steel my nerves for today’s final mediation. My feet are planted firm on the weathered planks; the ripple of water beneath seems to whisper, Begin.
I close my eyes, and in the hush that follows, I sense them arriving.
One Year Hence steps forward first—taller, poised, with a single gray strand glinting at the temple. You wear a soft smile. “You did it,” you say gently. “You honored your truth.” Your voice is calm, like the lake before sunrise.
I nod, clutching the silk fan I used in Qigong. “I honored myself,” I correct. “I learned that letting go could be love, too.” You reach out, touch my sleeve. “Promise me you’ll keep riding, keep breathing. The new you is fragile; nourish her.”
Her presence dissolves as the breeze picks up, and I feel a stronger heartbeat.
Ten Years Hence arrives then, sturdy and serenely confident. Your eyes hold stories I have yet to live: the novels you’ve written, the gardens you’ve tended in Tokyo’s spring light. You laugh softly, a sound like wind in bamboo. “Do you remember the settlement?” you ask. “That day you reclaimed your name and your time?”
I smile through the ache. “I remember my fear,” I admit. “But I also remember the moment I exhaled and felt myself return.” You nod, and in your hand you hold a photograph: me, standing before Kyoto’s Kinkaku-ji, cherry petals swirling at my feet. “That trip changed everything,” you say. “You will always find change when you decide to show up.”
Before I can answer, your form flickers, and I breathe in again, steadier now.
Fifty Years Hence manifests last—a silhouette leaning on a carved wooden cane, hair white as moonlight. Your face is lined and kind; your eyes gleam with a lifetime of wonder. You smile, and for an instant I see the sum of every joy and sorrow I have yet to live. “Dear friend,” you say in a voice like polished oak, “do you regret the path you chose?”
I hold onto the boardwalk railing, the dawn crowd trickling past, oblivious. My throat tightens. “No,” I whisper. “I only mourn the years I spent doubting myself.”
You reach out with your cane, tapping it twice on the wood. “Doubt teaches compassion,” you reply. “But courage teaches wisdom. Remember today, the day you biked and breathed and let your life hinge on truth. That’s the day you began the chapters I cherish.”
Your silhouette leans in close, and I hear the soft click of the mediation gavel echoing across decades. “One last thing,” you murmur. “Before you leave this world, tell that child you once were—and every self you became—that you did well.”
Silence settles again. I open my eyes to the present dawn, cold air on my cheeks. The boardwalk is empty now; their voices have faded into memory. But I feel them in my bones, their encouragement a steady pulse.
I mount my bike and begin the ride home, heart buoyed. Later, on the courtroom steps, I will sign the papers that free me. And below Lady Bird Lake’s shifting light, I will carry their words—into the Japan that beckons, into every year to come, and into the quiet twilight of a life fully lived.