I Met My Future Self Outside a Convenience Store. I Only Had One Question.

Evening at the school gate. I’m carrying my laptop bag, half a bottle of water in my hand, my phone buzzing nonstop. A parent’s message: “Teacher, the child skipped evening study hall again today. I’m about to lose it.” A message from the kindergarten teacher: “The baby only napped for twenty minutes today and was a bit fussy this afternoon.”

I stand at the entrance of the convenience store. The glass door reflects a person. She’s wearing an old hoodie, hair tied low, carrying groceries: scallions, eggs, a box of strawberries. She looks up. I recognize her. Fine lines at the corners of her eyes. The corners of her mouth aren’t pulled down. She sees me, no surprise, shifts to the side, and gives me a corner of the bench.

I sit down. I can only ask one question. I had wanted to ask, “Did you become who you wanted to become?” or “Will you still remember the me of now?” But I hear myself say:

“Later on, did you ever forgive the me who was working and raising a child and always scolding herself?”

She doesn’t answer. She takes my laptop bag and sets it by her feet, as if setting down something fragile. She opens my lunch box: green pepper and pork stir-fry, the rice already hard. She picks the green peppers out piece by piece and puts them on her lid. “You used to pick out the green peppers, then worry about wasting them and force yourself to eat them. Don’t eat them today.” She gets up and goes into the convenience store, buys two cups of soy milk. One sweetened, one unsweetened. She pushes the sweetened one toward me and drinks the unsweetened one herself. She says, “You sit for two hours at a time counseling students. Low blood sugar. Drink first.”

I take a sip. It’s hot. She watches me like I’ve just finished a long run.

Then she tells me about her day. She says this morning she took her child to school. The child was slow putting on shoes. She squatted down and waited. The child said, “Mom, slow down.” So she slowed down. She says she saw a student that morning. The student said, “I’m only telling you. Don’t tell anyone else.” She didn’t immediately say, “Do you want to try some deep breaths?” She didn’t immediately fill out a crisis assessment form. She asked first, “What do you need from me right now? Do you want me to listen, or sit with you for a while?” The student cried. She handed over a tissue. The tissues were from beside the water dispenser at the end of the school hallway, a little rough. The student took it and blew her nose. She says that afternoon she had a home-school meeting. A mother cried in the meeting room and said, “Am I a failure?” She poured the mother a cup of warm water and said, “Drink first. Failure or not, we’ll talk after you finish.” While she says this, she is peeling a tea egg. The shell breaks into pieces in the plastic bag. She peels it bit by bit, without looking up.

I ask, “So now, do you still scold yourself?”

She puts the egg in my bowl and says, “I do. Yesterday I left the files at school. On the way home I remembered and scolded myself the whole way. When I got downstairs, my child called Mama from the window. I stopped, swallowed the scolding. After swallowing it, I went upstairs and hugged him first. After hugging him, I messaged a colleague and asked her to take a photo and send it over. Before, I would have turned back and gotten it myself without telling anyone. Now I say, ‘Help me.’”

I stare at her. There is a small cut on her hand, covered with a band-aid. The edge of the band-aid has curled up. She follows my gaze, glances at it, and says, “Cut it this morning cutting an apple. Nothing serious.” She pulls her sleeve down and covers it.

I ask, “Then the me from back then, the one holding down a high-pressure job while clumsily learning to be a new mother, often exhausted, sometimes falling apart, always blaming herself, have you accepted her?”

She wipes the water droplets off the soy milk cup. She wipes slowly. She says, “I think of her every day. At 2 a.m., she’s revising counseling files. The baby cries. She answers the student’s message first, then picks up the baby. In class, she tells students, ‘Allow yourself to be imperfect,’ then turns around and scolds herself in the kitchen because she didn’t get the baby food right. Late at night, she sits on the toilet lid, afraid of waking the baby, not even daring to cry out loud. I want to tell her: You don’t have to do everything well. You hold the students, and you hold the child. You have already used all your strength. You don’t need to trade perfection for rest.”

She pauses. The convenience store door opens. Someone comes out, letting out a gust of cold air. She flips my phone over and puts it face down on the table. The screen is still buzzing. She says, “See? It keeps ringing. But if you don’t answer now, it won’t explode.”

I laugh a little. Tears fall into the soy milk cup. She doesn’t hand me a tissue. She puts the lid back on my lunch box and says, “Eat first. After you eat, I’ll walk with you for a bit. You still have evening study hall tonight. Don’t go on an empty stomach.”

We sit by the convenience store window. Outside, it gets dark. She doesn’t give me any more big lessons. She tells me she bought a bunch of scallions yesterday, forgot to eat them, and today they wilted. She tells me her child recently likes lining up blocks and calling it a train. She tells me the pothos at her school is half-dead from her care, but it grew a new leaf. She says, “See? Half-dead can still grow.”

I look down and eat. The rice is still hard, but the green peppers are gone. She zips my laptop bag and puts it by my hand. She says, “You’ll fall apart again. When you do, don’t stand in the kitchen scolding yourself. Go stand on the balcony for a while. Or message me. Even though I won’t receive it, you can write.”

I ask, “So the future me, are you doing well now?”

She finishes peeling the last tea egg and puts it in her mouth. After chewing, she says, “Busy. Still busy. But I steal a little space in the busyness. Like now. Sitting here, sharing an egg with you.”

She stands up. I stand up too. She picks up her grocery bag. The strawberry box inside is tilted. She straightens it with her hand. She says, “I have to go pick up my child. You should head back too. Don’t run late for evening study hall. The students get hungry.”

I ask, “Can I ask you one more question?”

She says, “We agreed on one.”

I say, “Then I’m done asking.”

She nods. She walks toward the kindergarten. After a few steps, she turns back. She says, “Oh right. That counseling file of yours. Write it tomorrow. Sleep first tonight.”

I stand where I am. My phone buzzes again. I take it out. It’s a parent message. I don’t answer right away. I silence the phone and take a sip of water. The water is warm. Then I walk toward the school. The evening study hall bell hasn’t rung yet. I pass the flower bed. Someone has watered it; the smell of wet soil is strong. I breathe in deeply. Tomorrow I still have to get up early, but tonight I’ll go wash the bottles first.