Looking back/out/forward...

 Musical accompaniment: Enter Shikari - Stop the Clocks 

Existing in three places at once is a strange way to live. It's as if you've one foot in the grave, the other in the cradle, and somewhere in the middle your nuts are hanging over a pool full of piranhas. It feels like you're living in a dream; not the one where you're giving a speech in front of the whole school and suddenly realise you forgot to put on pants, and not the one where you show up to a job interview and suddenly realise your cock is hanging out, not even the one where you're trying to coordinate your own going-away party but the gearbox just fell out of your bike and you have to crawl through the garbage-pile under the mechanics-shop you were stopped at because fuck-knows-why to collect all the cogs and bearings from amongst the rusty old Holden-branded Kingswood parts then ride back to the party with it all piled up on the end-cover sitting on your tank because apparently your bike is magic and who the fuck even needs gears anyway because you need to sort out the people who showed up to help load the shipping container with all your possessions and your bike and its gearbox and your little dog too before the train leaves and there's no time to waste and no time to lose because Gillian Anderson is the Conductor and she's looking at her fob-watch with a look on her face which you know means the train's leaving with or without you the moment the low-nitrile glove she's pulling on goes *snap* and don't even start because she's done with you and your shit. 

I may be feeling a little exposed right now. 

"I don't remember my dreams particularly often," I said, "and when I do they just leave me confused," 
and you said "that makes two of us." 

It seems like I'm living in sequential deja vu, like I'm Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica, because all of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again, and maybe I died, and maybe I survived the explosion, and maybe I'm an angel, and you just know that whether the showrunners throw in a kludgey ret-con, or just leave it mysteeeeeerious, you're going to feel unfulfilled when the credits roll regardless. 

Either way, I keep finding myself looking back at the ghost of Younger Pete when he was going through an earlier iteration of the same shit, thinking about what I'd tell myself if I could: 

"A'ight shithead, for starters don't date her. That was tragic," I tell myself. 
"I get to date *HER*? She sounds amazing!" 
"Oh, yeah, she is, but it all ends in tears." 
"How so? Does she screw us over or something?" 
"No, see... look... don't get me wrong, but you're a dick. You just don't know it yet."
"..." 
"It's all on you, but you learn from it eventually, if that helps any?" 
"So what you're saying is if I just don't be a shit-heel I get to be with the dream-babe?" 
"No, see... look... it's the fucking up that you learn from, right? 
"Plus she goes on to be with someone great, and they wind up really happy." 
"So you're saying I *should* date her, because it works out better for everyone?
"Or for her, at least." 
"..." 
"Sounds to me like it's going to be worth it, and you're still a dick, just sayin'." 
"No! I mean... true... but... OK, now I'm proper confused," 
and he said "that makes two of us." 

There's a tap on my shoulder, and the clocks stop. 

"A'ight shithead..." 
"Jesus wept, this is starting to feel like some Xmas Carol-shit right here."
"Fuck you, you insufferable twat-nozzle. Listen well, because there's shit I need me to know..." 
"What, like how to avoid some horrible thing I'll only learn from by doing, fucking up, and won't get to be you if I don't?"
"..." 
"Been there, tried that, bought the t-shirt, remember?" I tell myself, pointing to the shirt I'm wearing which reads 'I TRIED TO VIOLATE CAUSALITY AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY PARADOX'. 
"You forgot the black eye." 
"What blac...?" 

<SUCKERPUNCH> 

"Not as smart as you thought you were, huh?"
"Yeah yeah fine, you smug-faced cock-womble, you got me," I reply from the floor, chuckle, and continue, "man, I've always wanted to do that. 
"So glad I get to. 
"Can't fucking wait, not gonna lie." 
"..." 
"This is bullshit tho, we both know it. You KNOW you only got to be better than you were because I fuck up again. You were there, you saw it. 
"We're too fucking arrogant; the only way we learn is from our own mistakes. 
"Speaking of which: back atcha, cunt," I say, jabbing two fingers hard into my already-swollen eye whilst I watch myself grimace through the other. 

"Go fuck yourself; I'm doing the best I can." 

I look myself in the eye and say, "that makes two of us."