Appreciating Past Me

It is a real hassle to set the clock on my coffee maker. Every time the power flickers on a windy day, it forgets what time it is. Every time it forgets what time it is, I have to get the manual out to remind me exactly what buttons to push, in what order, to set both the time and the brew time. Every time, I have to fetch a flashlight and peer at the tiny gray display to make sure I’ve correctly set the a.m. and p.m. 

But I do it, every time, as a gift to Morning Me. 

You see, when Evening Me is making supper, or getting ready for bed, it’s not really that much extra trouble to set up the coffee pot to brew the coffee the next morning. And when my alarm goes off at 5:45 a.m., and five minutes later I hear the coffee maker kick on and know that my coffee will be ready shortly, Morning Me feels intensely grateful to Me of the evening before, who thought of her, and went ahead and made the coffee. 

When I was a teenager, my mother would tell me “You don’t realize how long you’re going to live.” What she meant was, the decisions I made as a teenager had the potential to affect my life for a long time, maybe for decades to come. She was probably thinking of big things like college and relationships, but the older I get, the more I realize that the things I do right now are going to going to materially affect me in the very near future–like setting up my coffeepot the night before.  

Past Me, I am coming to realize, is the greatest source of self care for Present Me. It is Past Me who did the laundry so that Present Me has clean underwear. It is Past Me who put dinner in the crock pot, so that when Present Me comes home tired from work, supper is already made. Because Past Me remembered to get gas on the way home from work, Present Me will be on time for work this morning.  

I’m not always grateful to Past Me. Sometimes she lets me down. She doesn’t always pay the bills on time, and then Present Me has to straighten that out. She sometimes forgets to add things to the calendar, and then Present Me winds up late, missing appointments, or double-booked. But Past Me is finally learning that her actions have consequences for Present Me, and she is trying to be more considerate. Every step Past Me takes away from procrastination, inattention, and doomscrolling into consideration for Present Me reduces my stress, fills my cup and bolsters my sense of competence. Especially if Present Me takes a moment to be grateful to Past Me for her diligence and thoughtfulness.

Right now, Past Me needs to get ready for bed, or Present Me won’t have a very good day tomorrow. Present Me is already irritated with Past Me, because Past Me didn’t get this week’s lunches made. But Present Me is just going to have to learn to forgive and go on. Past Me is trying. She really did her best.

Maybe it will be easier to have compassion if Past Me remembers to make the coffee.