"You are who you needed when you were younger" by PQHAÜS

Acrylic on canvas / 24x30 inch / 2026 / PQHAÜS

Muni in San Francisco during rush hour feels like a holding place. Too many people, not enough air. Bodies lined up in motion, eyes trained forward, everyone agreeing not to look too closely. Each person carries a life shaped by choices, accidents, and things they never consented to. Some arrived where they hoped to be. Others are still being pulled forward by necessity. But everyone carries something forward too. A plan, a wish, a version of themselves they are quietly trying to reach. Fear and hope exist in the same space. Like negative vision lenses, their lives are pressed again and again, ground down until the weight disappears from the surface. Everything still exists, just thinner, clearer, and easier to hide.

For the first time in years, I got on a Muni bus without preparing for impact. No traffic to fight. No internal countdown. My bag was empty. Nothing to anchor me to productivity or survival. My thoughts were still. My body was not on alert. I was not tracking my breath or my pulse. I was present in a way I forgot was possible.

I stood near the door, fingers wrapped around the pole, and let myself look.

That is when I saw them.

Someone wearing the aftermath of a long day. A backpack slung low, shopping bags gathered without intention. Work clothes marked by use, an apron still tied on, like they had not earned the right to take it off yet. Their face held a familiar kind of exhaustion, the kind that comes from staying upright longer than you should.

It was unsettling how clearly I recognized them.

That person was me.

Not a memory softened by time. Not a metaphor. Just me, earlier, moving through the city without protection. Carrying responsibility without understanding choice. Living reactively. Absorbing impact after impact because no one taught me how to shield myself, or that I was allowed to.

Back then, I wanted someone to talk to who could hold the weight with me. Someone steady. Someone who understood what I could not yet name. But the life I was given did not offer that kind of help. There was no pause, no guidance, no voice telling me I was allowed to slow down. I learned how to survive alone because there was no other option.

Thinking about that version of myself now, I feel more than one thing at once. Sadness for how much they carried. Pride for how they endured. And something close to apology. I am not entirely sure I became the future they imagined. I do not know if this is the life they were hoping all that effort would lead to.

Standing there now, hands empty, breath steady, I understood something that did not resolve cleanly.

I became the person I needed. 

Too late to save that version of me. 

Just in time to recognize them.