In 1998, I met myself in New Orleans, an angel from the future with a message

I was walking around the French Quarter looking for a place to sketch a picture and find shade from the hot sun.

I sat underneath of a tree in an alley beside the cathedral and opened my sketchbook. I began to draw a picture of a street gas lamp.

A while later a middle aged man in a nice suit wearing Birkenstock sandals and carrying a brown paper bag sat down on the alley curb and leaned against the street lamp that I was sketching.

He asked me if I was an artist. I told him that I was a college student from Missouri that recently changed my degree from Art Education to Business to eventually earn a more practical bachelor's degree.

He shook his head in disappointment, took a drink from the paper bag, and told me that he once was an artist full of dreams and extremely lofty expectations, and he too decided to pursue a professional career in the business world.

That decision ultimately made him a successful businessman at the expense of a happy life. He gave up on his raw talent and artistic dreams to chase the dollar and that was his biggest life mistake. His wife married him for money not love, his children were spoiled and entitled pricks, and his unhappiness fueled his alcoholism.

He looked me straight in the eyes and told me that if he could do it all over again, he'd embrace his natural talent in art - the passion that made him love himself and life. He urged me to follow my passion while I still had my life ahead of me.

The entire time he was speaking to me, an overwhelming sense of familiarity overcame me. I felt as if this encounter was spiritually important. I listened to this stranger's wise advice as if he was speaking the word of God.

And then a thought popped into my head that this man was my future self sent back to warn the younger me not to choose the path most traveled.

This man was the future me!

And then I realized that he looked exactly like me. His mannerisms, hair, glasses, facial expressions, his passion of self reflection and storytelling.

I thought to myself that I must be in the presence of an angel, perhaps my guardian. His message was too eerily relevant to ignore when contemplating my recent decision to change my college path...this couldn't be a chance encounter with a mere mortal.

My sketch began to take form, except it now included the entire scene before me; the gas lamp and the stranger.

Eventually the man concluded his story. He stood up with his paper bag and walked across the alley toward me to shake my hand and wish me luck. I thanked him and began to walk the opposite direction towards the square.

Seconds later, I suddenly stopped and looked behind me. I wanted to ask the man one final question.

The stranger had disappeared. I ran down the alley and began to search the French Quarter for the stranger. I ran up and down several streets and asked several tourists if they had seen this man.

Not one person had seen a middle aged man wearing a nice suit and Birkenstock sandals carrying a brown paper bag. Not one.

This man simply disappeared into thin air within seconds after he bid me farewell and good luck.

I'll never forget him. I'll never forget the time that I met future me, a time traveling angel sent back to 1998 to save my life.