Strange Self fulfilling Memory

Sometimes I'm startled when I look into a mirror. If my hormone balance is off my dysphoria is stronger. I was a day late with my shot this week because Halloween threw me off, and I didn't realize it until I felt weird the next day.

Today I glanced into the mirror as I sometimes do and instead of seeing my reflection I saw an echo. I saw my teenaged self, lost, angry, depressed. I saw frustration and pain in those eyes. Instead of my beard and clipped short hair I saw a smooth face, dark rings around the eyes and long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail.

It was like looking through time. When I was about 16, nearly 17, I looked into the mirror and was startled to see an older man, short cropped hair with grey at the temples and a dark short beard touched with gold and red. I stared and the man stared back. Our eyes were the same. This could be me somehow but I knew that was impossible so I turned off the water, dried my hands and walked away from the man in the mirror.

Today was that day. This was the other side of the mirror. I saw the angry teen girl whose eyes looked like mine but her body was younger. Her pale face dotted with freckles, her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail with flyaways at the ears curling and refusing to pull back.

She was so lost. I wonder if she saw that our eyes had that same look of fear and anger and loss. I don't remember noticing that, but I remember seeing him. I assumed it was a hallucination.

Something close to 14 years later the moment is complete. I've always wondered. I wondered who he was. It gave me a quiet secret hope. It also made me more depressed. I had no idea how to become that man but I have always somehow suspected it was me looking back at myself, judging.

Now I know it wasn't judgement. It was sameness, recognition of my younger self. He was every bit as startled to see me as I was him. I don't understand why I got this, whether it was one of those weird things where for me time isn't linear and I just looked through the mirror from both sides by chance. But I do know it was not hallucination.