The Council of Selves

Ras had always been a dreamer. At seventeen, she'd fall asleep with notebooks full of plans scattered across her bed—sketches of the art gallery she'd own, acceptance letters to prestigious universities she'd attend, wedding invitations with blanks where her future husband's name would go. She dreamed in vivid detail of the woman she'd become: successful, polished, surrounded by the life she'd carefully orchestrated.

That night, the dream felt different from the moment it began.

She found herself in a coffee shop that seemed to exist outside of time, where the lighting was too warm and the sounds too muted to be real. Across from her sat a woman in her thirties with familiar eyes and tired shoulders, wearing clothes Ras didn't recognize as fashionable.

"You're me," Ras whispered, though she hardly believed it.

The older woman smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "I'm what you become, yes. Though probably not what you expected."

Ras looked around frantically, as if the dream might offer some explanation. "But where's the gallery? The husband? The—"

"None of it happened, sweetheart." The woman's voice was gentle but firm. "Not the way you planned, anyway."

Ras felt something crack inside her chest. "Then what was the point? What was the point of any of it?"

Before the older woman could answer, the coffee shop began to shift and blur. Ras felt herself pulled backward, deeper into sleep, until she found herself in a vast, circular room with no clear walls or ceiling—just endless, soft gray space.

She wasn't alone.

Standing around her were other versions of herself, but not different ages—different aspects. She recognized them immediately, though she'd spent years trying to forget they existed.

There was the eight-year-old who still flinched when voices got too loud, her small hands always fidgeting with the hem of her dress. Beside her stood the twelve-year-old who'd learned to make herself invisible, shoulders perpetually hunched inward. The fifteen-year-old was there too, arms crossed defensively, eyes blazing with the fury she'd never been allowed to express.

"We've been waiting," said the angry fifteen-year-old. "Waiting for you to stop running."

Ras's adult self from the coffee shop materialized beside her, placing a steady hand on her shoulder. "They have things to tell you. Things I couldn't understand until I learned to listen."

The eight-year-old stepped forward, her voice small but clear. "The dreams you made, they were beautiful. But they were also armor." She reached out tentatively. "You built them so high and so bright that you thought maybe they'd be enough to make the hurt invisible."

"But hurt doesn't disappear just because you cover it with pretty plans," added the twelve-year-old, her voice carrying wisdom beyond her apparent years. "It just gets heavier."

The fifteen-year-old's expression softened slightly. "You thought if you could become perfect enough, successful enough, loved enough, then maybe what happened to you wouldn't matter anymore. But that's not how healing works."

Ras felt tears she'd held back for years threatening to surface. "But if I don't have those dreams, then what do I have?"

"You have us," said the older woman gently. "You have every part of yourself you've been trying to transcend instead of embrace. The scared parts, the angry parts, the parts that learned to survive in ways that don't serve you anymore."

The eight-year-old took Ras's hand. "We don't need you to fix us or make us disappear. We just need you to see us."

"To let us be part of your story," added the twelve-year-old.

"To stop being ashamed of us," finished the fifteen-year-old.

Ras looked around at these forgotten pieces of herself—the parts she'd buried under ambition and achievement and the desperate need to become someone else entirely. "I don't know how."

"One conversation at a time," said her older self. "One moment of not running away. One choice to stay present with the discomfort instead of projecting it into a future that may never come."

The eight-year-old squeezed her hand. "We know you were trying to protect us with all those dreams. But we're stronger than you think."

"And you're allowed to want things that are smaller and messier than what you planned," said the twelve-year-old. "You're allowed to build a life that feels true instead of impressive."

The fifteen-year-old stepped closer. "And you're allowed to be angry about what happened to you. Anger isn't the opposite of healing—sometimes it's the beginning."

Ras felt something shifting in her chest, like a dam beginning to crack. Not breaking, but allowing the first trickle of water through. "What if I don't know who I am without those dreams?"

"Then we'll figure it out together," said her older self. "All of us. That's what families do."

The gray space around them began to fill with warm, golden light, and Ras realized she felt lighter than she had in years. Not because her problems had disappeared, but because she was no longer carrying them alone.

"Will it be alright?" she asked, and she wasn't sure if she was asking her older self or her younger selves.

"It will be real," said the eight-year-old.

"It will be yours," said the twelve-year-old.

"It will be enough," said the fifteen-year-old.

"And yes," said her older self, pulling all of them into an embrace that felt like coming home, "it will be alright."

When Ras woke up, her notebooks were still scattered across her bed. But instead of looking at them with the urgency she'd felt before, she found herself curious about what other stories they might tell—stories that included all the parts of herself she'd been trying to leave behind.

For the first time in years, that felt like enough of a dream to begin with.