Dear Future Me: Did We Get the Life I Dreamed Of?

Dear future me,

Tell me everything. I'm so excited to hear how awesome you've turned out. Have you become popular in high school? How about university? Did the love we always longed for arrive?

I hope you lost some weight; you know how your sisters get. I don't want you to get bullied and feel upset any longer when you take a bite of a treat you like. We were going to look like Elena Gilbert, remember? The girl who all the hot vampires fell so hard for that they were willing to sacrifice their lives.

I wonder if you are still friends with Maya. I hope you are; she has always been a big part of our lives.

What about success? Which path are you following in life? Psychology sounds fun, but I hope you won't cast writing aside. I have so much faith for us to be writers since we wrote Harry Potter 8 and it landed with great success in fifth grade.

Dear future me, please don't be upset if some things don't turn out as you expected, okay? I know how much you can get carried away when you get lost in that pink cloud over our heads. Still, I'd be devastated if you told me you stopped dreaming; that's always been the best part of seeing life through our lens.

Besides that, what about music? Are you still playing the piano? I know Dad can be a bit rough sometimes, but he just wants you to succeed. Please don't forget that.

Another thing I'm dying to know is about our volleyball team. We are heading to the regional finals now. Please tell me, did we win? Either way, I hope you are still playing; we have always been talented. Don't mind what they say about you getting special treatment; keep your head high and do as you like.

One final thing: You know we always dreamt of making a difference, so my question is, does the world know you are there?

I hope you are still weird and doing things your way; it’s always been fun to be that way, and besides, I'm 11 and so far I haven't seen anyone having better stories than I can tell.

I am so excited to see what your letter is going to say.

Dear little girl,

I can’t say how thrilled I am to have your letter. I’ve been deeply upset thinking that we lost contact with each other. It took a bit for me to reply because I now live in London and mails tend to take their time. I love how much you romanticise life and it’s safe to say we remained that way; I’m delusional as fuck and still romanticize the shit out of life (yes, we curse sometimes now).

Let me satisfy your curiosity one by one.

First and foremost, we did become popular in high school! I know how important that was to you, so it’s a pleasure for me to tell you that. Although I gotta say, it came with time. Do you know what’s interesting? We became popular when we stopped trying. I did my own thing and didn’t mind others’ ideas, then all of a sudden it happened. I think that says a lot about life.

Bad news is, love kept disappointing us. Don’t worry, you had your first kiss when you were a sophomore in high school and we had plenty of boyfriends throughout life. Yet they didn’t want to stay, I don’t know why. But you know what, little girl, I learned a lot throughout our life and I think deep down they didn’t stay because they were not aligned. You know how easily we get attached and I have a name for that now: anxious attachment. That’s why whoever came into our life, it felt like all our happiness lived inside one single reply. I try to change that now, but the sad part is I’m scared to even like someone. As soon as that happens, I lose my cool and hand over control. You know how much of a control freak we are and I learned that it is not good for you to rely on external validation, but I still struggle to stitch that idea into my love life. So until then, I decided to do the best I can with whatever I got.

Now, are you ready for the biggest treasure that you’ll receive from my letter? We’ve lost tons of weight and I am now skinnier than either of our sisters ever was. Still, that does not satisfy me anymore. People say I am very pretty but now that became the only thing they see when they look at me. Little girl, we are not interested in hot vampires who’d fall for us over our looks; what we crave is someone who’d be amazed by our soul now.

Maya and I parted ways long ago, but that doesn’t change the role she had in our life. She was the first ever friend who made me feel like I can be myself and we always had so much fun. But our expectations from life, just like from friendship, were different. And that’s why we decided the best thing for us was to let each other go. Please know that this didn’t break our heart.

Little girl, I gotta say it is not only Maya who departed from our life; a lot of people came and left, even the ones I thought I couldn’t survive without. That's when I realised that the strongest act of love is letting go when the time feels right.

Success… I can’t say we are there but I feel that the process is aligned. I didn’t know this before but it turns out it is very difficult to become a psychologist in the UK, but trust me I’m doing my best. By the way, I have wonderful news about writing: we never gave it away. I have a blog now and people seem to enjoy reading what I have to say! I have made so many friendships in such a short time and all of them secured a spot that is very close to my heart.

Writing is still there but sadly we don’t play the piano anymore because I couldn’t handle Dad’s pressure and that rigid instructor kept making me cry during the lessons. Please don’t get upset, I know we were passionate but I learned that you need to be flexible if you want to be happy in life. I’m not as much of a perfectionist as I was before and hopefully in time it will lower the ground zero. A philosophy called Stoa really helped me with that. It’s teaching says:

“Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.”

That’s why when things don’t turn out the way I want, I do what I can and accept whatever comes next. Who knows, maybe we pick up another instrument later in life?

We didn’t win the regionals with the volleyball team, but we had a great time. I kept playing until sophomore year in high school but our team sucked so badly, and you know how we get when it comes to failure. That too I’m working on and it is not as bad as before. Life hadn’t always been easy, little girl; we failed many times until now and I know there are many more to come but that also feels okay now.

Don't worry, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I lost my dreamer side, so nothing changed on that front. It actually keeps me company at times I feel alone.

In terms of your final question, I can’t say I made a huge change in the world but the other day I touched someone else’s life and she said:

“I hope you can fight any battles you might be facing and stay as happy as you can make others. Thank you for making me feel like I had a friend even if it was only a conversation.”

I see life differently now, little girl. Change does not have to be something big, I changed one life that day and I felt the happiness of a lifetime. I’m at a point in my life where I seek meaning and I think action without intention rarely has a point. If I’m able to put a smile on someone’s face for once, I don’t care whether the rest of the world knows if I’m there or not.

It causes me a lot of trouble, but I’m as equally weird as you are and haven’t given up on doing things my way. Next month I’ll be 27 so I can say nothing changed in 16 years; our stories still crack people up with laughter. And the best part is, I don’t even slightly care about their judgement as long as I had fun along the process.

Writing this letter has been the best part of my day and I hope we stay in contact. When I thought I lost you, I lost myself too and that was the hardest pain I had to endure.

Thanks for reading! 🤍

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