Every five years I write myself a letter to be read in five years’ time. It started my junior year of high school when the guidance counselors asked everyone in my class to write a letter to themselves in six months, one year, and five years. I kept doing it. I thought it was a neat idea to observe changes in myself and my goals. Today, this letter-writing practice took on a new meaning. One of hope, because for the first time in my life, I’m having a hard time seeing five years down the line.
I’ve always been a planner (surprising nobody who knows anything about my writing process). I think I was eleven when I made my first ten-year plan. And sure, I’m not great at sticking to my plans, but I’ve never been unable to plan. The last couple weeks have been hard from a planning point of view. I’m not usually pessimistic, but these days I have to take things moment by moment, day by day, and if I look to far into the future and too far is sometimes only into the afternoon, this sense of utter dread washes over me, because who knows what the future holds? Who knows if there even is a future (this is my anxiety disorder talking. It likes to catastrophize and it turns out that a global catastrophe is right up its alley)?
But today was the day to open the letter I wrote myself five years ago when I was twenty-two. That letter was full of hope and kindness, wishing me happiness and love and success. Twenty-two-year-old me made twenty-seven-year-old me cry, which granted is that hard a thing to do these days. I’m a crier under the best of circumstances and I think we can all agree that these aren’t the best of circumstances. It was happy crying though.
And so, despite the fact that I can hardly look into the next five hours let alone the next five years, I sat down and wrote a letter to my thirty-two-year-old self, outlining my hopes for her. And I know it’s hard to be hopeful right now when we’re seeing photos of refrigerated trucks being used as makeshift morgues, when there are gravesites that can be seen from space, when medical professionals are running out of the equipment that keeps them safe. I know hope is hard to find and I say that as an optimist.
But even though it was hard to find hope enough to write myself a letter about what I hope to be doing in five years’ time, I think it was the most important thing I’ve done for myself in the last two weeks. The tight knot in my sternum is a little bit looser, the light seems a little bit brighter, my body feels more solid.
So, even though it’s hard to look ahead right now, write yourself a letter. It doesn’t have to be for five years down the line. It could just be for tomorrow or next week. Give yourself an excuse to find some hope in all this mess.
I’ll go first.
Dear Emily,
You’re a day older now! You’ve survived April first with hopefully not too many people being dicks to each other. I bet you’ve even finished revising that one chapter you’ve been stuck on for the last three weeks. Maybe you’ve finished making the sparkly purple pants you’ve been plugging away at. Heck, maybe you’ve even finished cutting out the binding/ties for all the masks you’ve made that are currently unwearable because I’ve been too lazy and distracted to sit down and cut out 1.5-inch strips of fabric (I mean who can blame me, that is tedious work when you don’t have a cutting mat and rotary cutter).
I hope you haven’t cried too much between now and then. And if you have cried, I hope they’re happy tears spurred on by people being wonderful and kind, because even though the world sucks right now, there are so many people trying to help and if that doesn’t make you cry for joy then are you even you anymore?
I hope I didn’t leave the kitchen in too much of a mess for you like yesterday me did to today me. How did I manage to get so much flour on the counter? Didn’t I know that flour is hard to come by these days?
All my love and hope to you, dear self,
Emily
Thanks so much for reading. Stay home if you can. Stay safe. Wash your hands. Have hope.
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