Dear Future Me

I’m assuming that I do still have some failures I don’t yet know about, because I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t keep trying. But the fact that you’re reading this in the future shows that we’re succeeding at something, right? Maybe I’m naïve to believe that at one point, everything will be fine if I just keep trying. What if at one point I run out of attempts? Has that happened?

If I picture my perfect life at this point in time, I see a little house in London, with a small garden. That would suit me, not too much space for one person but enough to maintain. You take walks around a nearby park and try and see something new in London daily. You see a different part of England every weekend, a trip to a different city. You travel often. You can spend hours in a nice little study, writing, and when you’re finished, you take a book into a little reading nook and read. You have one room that is wall-to-wall books, and another that is wall-to-wall clothes. You watch films, TV shows, and play your favourite video games when you need a break. You don’t have pets, even though you like them, because they tie you down, and you don’t have children yet because you’re not ready. You never married. You spend most of your time on your own, but you see friends occasionally.

Maybe even further in the future, you have a child, a daughter. You raise her with a love of books. You instilled in her a love of travelling by taking her abroad at a young age. You play video games with her, introducing her to your favourites. You watch movies together, all the classics and the best new releases. You adopted a cat and a dog, so that she grows up loving animals. You teach her all about feminism. However, there are things you don’t want to teach her. You should try and raise her without making her worry about the food she eats. You don’t want her to fear getting older by acting like your age is a shameful secret.

The political environment as of right now feels more tumultuous than ever. It feels like a world tilted on its axis, and it’s either going to balance itself back together, or fall off completely. The actions of a few can make the world seem like an awful place, but as of late it is the actions of the many that are giving me hope. If one action can make even the slightest of differences, it’s worth doing. Even if that action doesn’t change things, but only reminds others that there is good in the world. I am writing this to you because I hope that in the years between me writing this and whenever you next read it, you will not have lost that small grain of hope.

From you from the past