A Letter to My Future Self: Molly
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Imagine if, in three or five or ten year’s time, you received a letter from the person you are now. What would you want to hear and what do you, presently, want that person to know? This is Writers’ Club member Molly’s letter to her future self…
Dear Future Me,
As someone who likes to plan down to the last detail and has a list for every occasion, the thought of the future can be pretty daunting. I like to be prepared for every possible eventuality, and I constantly stress over the most minute details. I am the person that always has the stock of lip balms, tampons, throat sweets and a spare of everything for just-in-cases, because ‘you never know’. But that is the whole point about the future – you will never know until you get there. Despite all my planning and list-making, nothing is set in stone. Is this absolutely terrifying? Of course! But is it also quite exciting? Again, of course!
It can be fun to dream up crazy and far-fetched lives for myself in ten years’ time. I would quite happily settle for being the long-lost relative and heir of a reclusive billionaire, or suddenly discovering I have magic powers that let me fly, or even winning the sum of a mere £35 million on the lottery. However, as unfortunate as it is, these dreams are very unlikely to come true. There are some milestones that I hope to have accomplished – primarily, I want to have graduated with my degree and masters! I want to be in a job within the environmental sector, living in my own place and be financially independent. I would also love to have been able to travel and see the world, create new memories with my friends and family, and tick a couple of things off the bucket list (with skydiving at the very top). But when I take a step and look at the bigger picture, my greatest hope isn’t that all the items have been checked off the list, but simply that I am happy. I want to have treasured every second of university, be working in a job that I love, be living in a place I can call home and not be constantly worrying about money. I would love to have been able to experience new cultures, to surround myself with people that I adore and bring me joy, and to push myself out of my comfort zone. My main hope is that I am proud of who I am and how far I have come.
Ultimately, it isn’t the end of the world if none of the things I hope to achieve actually happen. If the past two years have taught me anything, it is that as long as I am happy and healthy, the rest doesn’t matter. Covid-19 is something no one could have predicted – if someone would have told me in January 2020 that I would spend the next chunk of my life isolated from everyone, restricted on what I could and couldn’t do, wearing a face mask everywhere I go and stock buying loo roll, I would have laughed in their face. The life I have now certainly isn’t the future I imagined for myself a few years ago. There has been a lot I wanted to do and haven’t, but there has been so much more that I have done that I hadn’t even imagined I could. My mental health is something that has been knocked about more than ever – yet if it hadn’t been, then I wouldn’t feel as confident in my future as I do now. It is almost 100% guaranteed that I will have to face trials and challenges throughout my future, but I now know that I am strong enough to take it.
I have always been more of a ‘the future is in my hands’ type of person than a ‘whatever happens, happens’ type of person. I do try to constantly save all I can and work towards a good degree to lay the foundations for my future, and I do believe that I am going to have to work hard to then see the rewards. However, at the same time, it is true that whatever happens will happen. Did I spend the better half of 2020 stuck at home because I wasn’t working hard enough for my A-levels? Of course not! Some things are completely out of our control, and it is important to remember that no matter how hard you work or how much you plan, life always has a funny way of twisting things.
So dear future me – what is it that I need to hear? I say that I want to be proud of who I am and what I have done, but I find that I am, in fact, already proud of my future self. I will have made mistakes and learnt from them; I will have been knocked down and got back up again; I will have lost some friends and made new ones along the way. So yes, whatever happens will happen, but yes, it will all have happened because of the path I chose to go down. My future is unknown and daunting, but I do know that I am, and will be, proud of me.
From,
Molly
