Okay, what i want to talk about is this. paul's great-grandmother, when looking at her younger-self in the painting, says she's the only one who remembers herself that way. despite this, she still expects to see herself this same way: young, no matter how old (she is herself then and now)
PAUL, on the other hand, when looking at the photo of julian and him, can't even remember being that young. julian tells him with the envelope and its contents what they both already know: that that he is not the same and that he is "not pablo, not anymore" (not to him or in general)
Everything that has transpired, everything paul and julian have done to eachother, to themselves, all the destruction and monstrousness has made them into what they are now. (rip "nothing made you. you just are")
even though paul is closer in age to his pablo-self than his great-grandmother was to her adolescence, paul is the one who has a larger distance (an entire disconnect!) between himself then and now.
Also sidebar: "it was the cruelest thing he could have given her." Paul thinks this about his gift for his great-grandmother. And even though in that last chapter, paul doesn't explicitly think this about Julian's envelope for him, the parallel is too close to not apply here as well
(though imo paul did the cruelest thing first (when he reached steadily for Julian's hand at the ravine))
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