Opening a Letter to my Future Self

I rounded out my first week at my first official full-time job out of college. I had just gotten inside and was trying to take my black boots off without undoing the zipper. I was in a hurry—home sweet home. Simultaneously, I tried to hike up the leather strap of my work-appropriate tote bag so it wouldn’t slide off my shoulder. As I finally gave up and leaned down to unzip my boot, my eyes were drawn upwards as I yanked my purse back up with the other hand. They caught on a photo frame of me as a fourth grader on the door. It was in a flimsy white frame, decorated with some foam stickers of assorted colors, in the shape of stars and snowflakes, studded with plastic gemstone stickers. I remember gluing weak magnet strips to the back while making it in class. Then I waited my turn to pose in front of the projected image of a waterfall for my teacher to snap a picture and mutter "next” to the next kid in line. We stuck those photos to the then-dry frames and brought them home. I’ve forgotten what the occasion was. 

Despite passing by the photo stuck to the door for the past five or six years countless times, I looked closer this time, fascinated. I examined the picture of myself, hardly recognizable without my signature glasses that I’ve been wearing daily for a year or two after the photo was taken. My smile was smaller than it is now, almost shyer. This was before I got braces, and I had an extremely crooked tooth-smack dab on the left side of my smile. Perhaps I was conscious of it, but I also think that my smile was just smaller back then. The pink headband I wore that day was a hard plastic number with a shiny magenta flower detail, and I was wearing a red shirt. It was a sensible smile, neither fake nor genuine. I don’t remember how I was feeling at the time. If I was frustrated, happy, or sad. It seems that these details of the day-to-day slip between the cracks of negative events that stand at the forefront of my memories of my childhood. Forever forgotten, always missed.

As I trudged up the stairs, my cashmere sweater itching ever so slightly, and once again hiking up my bag straps, I began to feel the telltale sensation of my throat closing up a bit. I was thinking about the photo, every time I blinked I saw that pink headband with the flower, the pathetic fake generic background. It was a Windows desktop background of our choosing if I remember correctly. My throat felt the way that throats feel when you are about to cry. The sensation happens often when I think of the past. The image of myself smiling shyly at the camera at the front of my conscious mind almost brought me to tears by the time I reached the top step. 

I’ve been thinking about work and everything going on lately. That’s normal, right? I get sentimental when life changes happen, as one does. It seems that work and my new job are all I can talk about lately, to friends, family, and people on the internet. I feel like a real adult now, and it is a strange feeling to grapple with. When I was a kid, I observed when my parents talked to my older siblings. The natural order of things was that I was to stand on the side, not interfere. Let the older people talk. When I got a bit older, the problems I lamented to my parents were discussed lightly at the dinner table, advice given, but ultimately not taken very seriously. After all, there were more important things to discuss, such as work. Real work that makes money, puts food on the table. Not homework and studying. Real stuff, deserving of respect. Real respect, not the fake kind you direct towards kids when they get mad about a toy or something of equally little importance. 

When I was a teen, a recurring thought I’d have was that I had never really had the chance to be a child. This was something I equated to the ever-effervescent and elusive sensation and emotion that one can only describe as “happiness.” I beat myself up for feeling sorry for myself when I knew that I had it good compared to others. My family is loving, my parents are together, and we weren’t financially unstable. In hindsight, I realize that it doesn’t matter whether these things are true or not true and that it’s all subjective, because how does one measure such things? Even if they were true, that doesn’t mean that how I felt wasn’t valid. Or the fact that perhaps my suffering may not have even been in a position to be validated by those specific circumstances, the aforementioned elements. That two facts can coincide, in that not everything is a cause and effect. Because of the lingering thoughts and feelings, much of my formative years were spent pondering my status. Was I a child, a young adult, an adult, an old soul, as they call it? My baby face, yet serious demeanor at times threw people off. I cried often, in front of people, no less. I felt cheated, wondering why I had to bear all the negative aspects of being a child but none of the positive. Like feeling carefree, loved, spoiled. I idly wondered if I would ever master balancing the feeling of my inabilities and utter stupidity mixed with the deep cynicism I held in my heart. Was I wise for my capability to feel and comprehend the latter? Did it matter how I felt on the inside, or was how I appeared destined to be forever how others perceived me?

Even now, I struggle with the concept of an inner and outer life, an inner or outward appearance, inner and outer personality. I wonder how to leave my personal life at the door of my office building, how to leave my work self at the door of my home. If it can even be considered a home anymore, now that I am officially an adult mooch living with my parents again, not just the college kid coming back for the holidays or summer break. I’d cry in the living room of my college apartment, feeling homesick for the familiar sights of my childhood home. My college apartment never felt like home, more like a temporary dwelling despite living there for two years straight. But now what I had always told myself was home, my real home, feels almost foreign. Ironic.

I scrolled on social media for a while in bed after chucking off the cashmere and purse with the leather straps. I was bone-tired, for the first time all week. I was running on nerves and anxiety during the earlier days. Everything blended into a mess of ironing button-up shirts, picking a bag to bring, all the self-doubt, and laying out business-appropriate outfits that would remind my male-dominated office that I am a woman and that I am proud to be a woman while maintaining business attire standards. Not being too on the nose. Learning to take the public transportation system to my office, try not to laugh too much or too weirdly or stick my foot in my mouth at work, and try to get rest despite waking up every few hours in the night due to anxiety. What if I made a bad impression on my manager and team? What if I fumbled in a social situation? What if they thought I was weird, and I missed some invisible social cue that would impede me from getting put on important or big projects? What if I accidentally screwed myself over, my career, everything I have been working towards over the past few years? 

My family looked at me funny and scratched their heads while I told them I couldn’t sleep, that I tossed and turned all night. “You didn’t use to be like this,” they said in confusion and awkward laughter. They were referring to the fact that I didn’t get good grades in high school. Implying that my anxiety is typical for an overachiever, which I am not, according to their perception of me. And they say family knows you best. What is one supposed to say to that?

But laying in bed, I truly felt tired. Drained, even. It’s amazing how every aspect of life continues despite emotional, physical, or mental distress. The clock kept ticking forward with every minute and second that passed, my sister came home in a whirlwind of chatter about the dinner with a friend she had just gotten back from, and my mom yelled from the kitchen that the mango I brought home was delicious, everything else was in motion, regardless of my mental confusion, processing, and constant concern about the future that was ever marching closer. I closed my eyes and then got up to go shower. What else is one supposed to do?

I let Tinashe play from my phone speaker, sitting on the dusty windowsill that I never seem to get around to cleaning. While getting ready to shower, I couldn’t help but notice the grime that had built up despite doing chores not too long ago. Or so I felt. I wiped down the typical bathroom spots that seem to never be clean despite constantly attending to them: toilet, sink, tile floor, shower stall floor. I refilled the liquid hand soap dispenser and scrubbed the toilet while trying not to think of all the gross particles that were probably being expelled toward my face as I scrubbed the sides. 

After my shower, I patted toner into my damp skin. My face was strangely pinkened, more so than usual, on the apples of my cheeks and across my nose. I decided that I should make it a habit to reapply sunscreen throughout the day. Especially now that I will be out and about most days. I am a victim of the movement regarding pushing for in-person work again and all. But who knows if I will remember to, or care to. It was just a fleeting thought, after all. As I changed, I examined three new bug bites in the mirror, little white raised bumps on my inner arm and chest. I wondered if they were from my bed sheets or clothes. Perhaps from going to the office? I had just washed my sheets a week ago. Is that long enough for it to get dirty enough to attract bugs? That’s just what my parents would tell me growing up when I’d get bug bites. I smeared white lotion onto my face and brushed my oily hair back from my face. I'll wash it tomorrow. Impulsively, my mind wandered to the unassuming standard letter-sized envelope sitting on my bookshelf just two rooms away. 

I have a white envelope on my bookshelf. It has been residing on my bookshelf for at least two years. I found it in my drawers, some time ago. I have come face to face with it once more recently because I just swapped bookshelves with my dad. He needs shelves for CDs and DVDs, so we moved my old one to the living room area and he gave me his larger one which he replaced with a new one he just made. It works despite the varying sizes of the media items, we just adjust the horizontal slats up and down. I tucked the white envelope into the side of the shelf. It resides there along with the papers that come in the mail along with the occasional advanced readers copy I receive from publishers. When I receive packages for ARCs in the mail, the pinch-me moment never seems to fade with time, even though it’s been a year since the first one came in. I keep all the notes they come with, even the generic publishers' encouragement and reminders to post on social media. Maybe I will show them to my kids one day. Your mom does/did things! She is more than just a mom! She existed before you!

The envelope states, “To: Fiona [REDACTED].” Underneath, “Not to be opened until 3/1/23.”

I forgot it existed until I found it a few years ago. That was a lie, the part about forgetting it existed. I had a vague remembrance of its existence but hadn’t thought about it. It’s been more than a year since I was supposed to open and read it. I don’t think that I had expected that when I originally put it together, I probably thought I was super clever and that I would be so excited to read it all those years after. That I would smile and open it on the exact day I wrote on the envelope, in anticipation. Yet I remember feeling sort of lame as I put the paper into the envelope all those years ago. I hadn’t written anything groundbreaking, I remember. But for some reason, it wasn’t excitement, but fear that felt so acutely when I held the envelope in my hands, all those years after writing its contents. I didn’t know what to expect, or how it would make me feel. Best to put it back on the shelf. It’s probably nothing interesting anyway. Interesting how two very contrasting emotions or thoughts can coincide at once. Fear of what I would find, indifference at what a young me felt was relevant to write down for future me to know. Perhaps I am becoming an adult who looks down on children. The Little Prince was right. 

Lately, I can't stop crying.

As I rubbed the last of the lotion into my pink face, the white blending into an invisible sheen across my skin, I decided to open it once I left the bathroom. After all, there’s no time like the present.

I grabbed it off the shelf in my room and proceeded to plop down onto my bed. Scooting over to turn on my bedside lamp, I gingerly opened the flap of the envelope. As I expected, I had never sealed it properly, with tape or with the adhesive activated by licking. If I had to guess, I never found a point in doing so, as I would be the only one opening it, and if someone were to try to get into it before I could, there would be no stopping them even if I had licked it shut. Also, I hate the taste of such adhesive and wonder if I am swallowing glue when I lick the shiny lining of the flap. I watched a video not too long ago about how there are calories in licking envelope adhesive. 

My hands were sweating as I pulled out the three enclosed pieces of binder paper, carefully folded into three sections. As a child, I had found this skill to be notoriously hard, as there are no easy measurements or standards to go by, I couldn’t just meet the two ends together as I had when I folded pieces of paper in half. I tried everything to perfect it, I counted the lines in the paper, yet this plan was foiled by that extra-long margin at the top of the binder paper. And the last line was often cut off at weird intervals, it wasn’t exact. So I tried using a ruler, but that felt fussy. As if counting the blue lines wasn’t fussy. I don’t remember what method I tried for this time, but they were perfectly folded, an exact tri-fold. I don’t think anyone but I would care or notice if such papers were exactly folded into three sections, how difficult it was to achieve or perfect this skill. 

I held the pieces of paper open, quickly glancing over the lines. It lined up with my memories of what I found was important to write about. After all, it’s been nine years, not exactly a millennium. I skimmed the section at the top where I had written my name, my signature, weight, favorite songs, and books. I cringed at the boy band adjacent duo I had listed as the artist of my favorite song. Strangely enough, it turns out that I had written two letters, both around seven months apart. Both with the aforementioned updates, and a very very brief letter about what was going on in my life, taking up no more than a page. Chatter.

I wrote about my friends, the drama at school, a boy who supposedly liked me, the sports I was attempting to play, and summer plans. Reminders to myself, questions. I wrote that life was pretty good. Complaints about my teachers, a joke about how bad my handwriting was. Nothing out of the ordinary for a journal entry adjacent to a letter. Like a diary of a girl. I’m not sure if I was playing up how happy I was, or if I just felt kind of awkward writing to an older me. Worried of future me’s judgment, that I would be like the other adults I knew in my life. Is there any use in speculating?

I wanted to be a baker, to own a bakery. Now I work at a bank, a stable corporate job with a coffee machine and dress code. I don’t even like baking anymore. Too fussy and unpredictable. Not worth the effort.

My favorite books were the Gregor the Overlander Series, and the Trylle Trilogy. Young adult novels, with romantic elements and a strong adventure arc. Now, my favorite books are modern classics, like Slaughterhouse-Five, and Of Human Bondage. I still hold a deep fondness for Gregor the Overlander though. 

My favorite songs were of the pop variety, one by Ed Sheeran. An extremely romantic one at that. I guess some things never change. I still like songs with romantic origins and feelings, but they usually lean towards heartbreak and have more silky elements. RNB, some pop, and the like. Tinashe, 6lack, Ariana Grande. 

I pulled my damp fingers away from the almost translucent paper, hoping to not leave a mark. There’s not much else to say besides what I wrote, I suppose. 

“[...] and his gang hate me haha. They say I’m too sensitive because I cry a lot, and never take me seriously too!”

“How am I? Do I still love books? Do I have good grades? Do I still have a love for candy and goofy/funny things? Do I still wear blue all the time? Am I tired of life? Did I end up good or bad?”

“I’m not really sure what else, but I hope I turned out ok. I hope so…”

And the last line before I put the papers into the envelope, not to touch it again until now, “I’ll write to you again soon. I think I should make this a thing that I do every once in a while huh. Well, bye for now.” 

I wish it contained something to spark some revelation about life, that this moment would be like the movies, that I would drop everything, and change careers. Move to the Midwest or New York. Find my passion, like rescuing dogs. But nothing will change. I will jiggle my mouse at work to keep the Microsoft Teams app from saying I’m idle (yellow icon) rather than available (green icon) to my manager and coworkers. Can’t let them know I’m slacking off. I will continue to read books and write blog posts. I suppose it’s good to know that I always liked “silly/goofy things,” but it’s not anything I didn’t already know. Unfortunately for the younger me, my grades weren’t exactly all As in college, or high school for that matter, but hey, who’s counting? Me, evidently. Most importantly, I did turn out okay. 

They say how you spend your days is how you spend your life. I’m still learning how to navigate my days. Perhaps I should figure that out before coming to any conclusions about how my life is going to go. 

When I think of this letter, I think of the younger me, earnest to make the older me happy. I just wish I could tell her that older me just wants her to be happy, to not yearn for future joy, to put off joy as if it is a finite resource, only to be enjoyed by those older, supposedly more mature and intelligent than me currently. As if their enjoyment is more acute than mine. 

Perhaps there is enough joy to go all around. 

July 12, 2024