Future Me

I moved to New York almost exactly 4 years ago. August 15th, 2006, my Budget truck full of cheap IKEA furniture (which somehow I really, strongly felt was worth moving cross-country at great cost--note I do not still possess any of it) rattled across the George Washington Bridge and some place totally new and weird became home.

Moving was exciting and exhilarating and wonderful but also really, really hard. I came here for personal reasons but also to start a grad program, and I was just very naive about how much work that would entail, how much the move would unroot me, how unbelievably homesick I would get for the Midwest, and how freaking hard it is to find employment in NYC.

Shortly after I set up the internet in my craptacular first apartment, I stumbled across the FutureMe website and wrote myself a really, really melodramatic and cathartic email. Then I completely forgot about it until it showed up in my inbox a year later. I was at work, and I cried when I read it, because all of those just-moved-across-the-country, I-don't-know-which-way's-up feelings came flooding back to me. I wasn't sad, just overwhelmed and weirdly moved. (Is it narcissistic to say that a letter you wrote yourself was moving? Well, sorry, in that situation it was. Call me a navel-gazer.) I kept up writing myself a new email each time one popped in my inbox for a few years, but none of them had the impact of that first one.

Why is this getting a blog post? Well, see the annotated first email below.


Dear FutureMe,

You've been in New York for a year now. [Ed note: Blah blah blah this part is interesting to no one but me. Read: super personal]

I hope you're getting close to finishing the master's degree. [Ed note: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA TRY TWO MORE YEARS AND THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS UNTIL YOU'RE DONE!] I hope you were able to stop fretting about the loans and enjoy such a fantastic city. [Ed note: HAHAHAHAHAHA NOT WORRYING ABOUT MONEY AS A GRAD STUDENT IN NEW YORK YEAH RIGHT!] I hope you're looking forward to post-graduate school life with optimism. If not, you really need to work on that, because you're wasting your own happiness. [Ed note: See the melodrama in action?]

You better think seriously about starting to write again. You know you're afraid of it, but you have to do it anyway. This is a reminder--your dream is to write, and it's a pretty easy dream to achieve. You just need to pick up a goddamn pencil and do it. No one is stopping you but your own laziness and insecurity. [Ed note: I swear at myself a lot. Also, I think I am attempting tough love on myself. Hopefully it doesn't come across like I'm minimizing how hard writing is/how hard writers work, but please remember that I was trying to be persuasive.]

I hope you've made good choices this year and are creating a life you love. Be strong, follow your passions, make your goals happen. This is so cheesy, but you deserve it. [Ed note: Yes, that is cheesy and the passage of time does not make it less so.]

Don't be a fucking idiot. [Ed note: This would become how I end all of the emails to myself. Armchair psychologists, have your field days.]

Love,

Yourself


Hey PastMe:


I did it.

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