I can’t be the only one that had the classic assignment of writing letters to our future selves at the beginning of the year and then the teacher would give you the letter on the last day of school and you could read past thoughts of your younger self. It’s such a sweet exercise. I always look at my younger self with such tenderness. A little naïve soul not knowing what was going to happen with time. A “me” before the erosions of time and the hard-earned wisdom of experience. I often think back of her with fondness. So much enthusiasm. So much innocence.
As a kid, where you’re constantly drawn into trying to achieve the next big thing, the next birthday, writing a letter to your younger self gives perspective. You will grow up, you will be different a year later, perhaps not drastically, but there will be little changes. But it also teaches a little bit about nostalgia too, and how to build 20/20 vision about your past as you grow older. As a youngest child I needed these reminders, because most of the time I was racing to catch up with my sisters, always thinking myself to somehow be “behind.” I was still in middle school while they were in college, already antsy for adulthood and rather indifferent to high school. Being able to look back and track my own growth was helpful, instead of comparing my 13 year old milestones to my 19 and 21 year old sisters, as I was prone to do.
But now I have a different problem, I can easily get caught up in my rear view window, looking at past versions of myself and thinking they might have been better than what I have become. I was an intense runner at one point, clocking 40-50 miles a week. Now I go out for short little trots when it suits me. But we can color the past to the shade we like. That version of me was severely lacking in compassion for myself. In terms of running performance I’m falling short of past Ali, but running is also far from my only hobby now, there’s growth, just not in that area.
Right now, I’m gearing up for another long distance period with my husband, something we both knew was coming and both signed up for, so, as mile markers for us over this period, I wrote letters to him to open throughout the long distance. This involves me writing to a future Steven and also, sort of trying to imagine my future self and what our emotions and feelings will be over the next period of time. If you ever want to realize how little control you have of your life or how we never know what a day will hold, I highly recommend doing this. You can guess at some of the things your future self will face, some of the things that will one day occur. But much is undecided. So much is outside my control.
In the letters I can predict there will be times we feel connected and read into each other’s lives in spite of the distance, and there will be times where we feel the absence sharply and are frustrated and exhausted. Addressing these now foretold difficulties, I wrote: “ it will pass, and we will be okay, because we’ve weathered storms before.”
Writing letters to be opened at a later time is something of an exercise of faith, an “assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb 11:1). I have faith that my words will come at just the time he needs it, but I can’t control that. I write about storms we haven’t yet faced, about frustrations we don’t know, about moments of loneliness I haven’t endured. With no evidence or assurances that it will be okay, writing a letter saying as much feels bold foolish. Am I daring fate to smash my hopes? Am I, like Odysseus, challenging the gods to cross me? Well, no. Faith isn’t a cocky challenge to the world around us, but a ripple of peace that sustains us.
Without faith and hope, writing letters to different versions of myself would be more poison than balm, either building expectations too high for myself, or overwhelming myself with a demoralizing laundry list of achievements and accomplishments. Without faith and hope, the message of “it’s okay” will ring as hollow, the wishful thinking of youthful naivety.
Dear future me, whether it seems like it now, all will be ok.
We’re never able to predict what hardships we will face in this life, and perhaps that is the greatest mercy; that we are not told our futures. But we are nevertheless given a reassurance that we will be okay, it’s all going to be okay in the end. That God is distant from the world, but present within both our joy and privations in ways that exceed our understanding. Though the world is outside my meager control, it is not out of control. If I can’t control things myself, hope at least assures me that there is someone or something that does. If no one is going to follow my plan, faith assures me there is one, unseen. There is and there always will be. God is outside of the realm of time, and asks that I have faith to entrust him with my own.
Lovely! I still write letters to my future self to this day; I use the website FutureMe. I schedule them far enough out that I usually forget that I’ve done it, so it’s a nice little surprise from the past whenever it’s delivered.