Future Self Makes Good

Someone on a committee somewhere at my high school asked us to write a letter to ourselves to be opened ten years later. My letter went astray, and so the current alumni coordinator sent my mother my letter 21 years after my graduation. Mom forwarded it on to me, and I opened it, reading my thoughts at age 17.

The letter is as follows, with the opening quotation appearing on the back of the envelope.

Who Wills, Can.
Who Tries, Does.
Who Loves, Lives.
--Anne McCaffrey

Well, my dear, here you are, ten years later. I hope life held about half of the promise you thought it would. I wonder if you could share with me a little wisdom…I guess I’ll share some with you. Laugh and the world laughs with you; cry and you ruin your makeup. Don’t forget to smile often, laugh heartily, savor the precious times, and cry when necessary. Are you still dreaming? I hope so. Are you sitting next to Gilbert right now? Are you content? Remember to love life…and don’t forget—I have faith in you!!

Love, wisdom, beauty, smiles, sunshine, teardrops, daisies, and starlight,

Your Young Self,

Wendy

The first thing that struck me was the phrase, “half the promise.” Half the Promise? How much promise did I think I had, and what would half of that be? I chuckled with Young Self, a cynic at that age, already assuming that life would not live up to youthful expectations.

Hmmm…Half the Promise. I don’t quite think Young Self had a vision of the future clearly laid out, but I know it was something along the lines of the American Dream – Classic Edition. I expected to graduate from college and get a “good job,” hopefully working for a magazine. I hoped to be sitting next to the spiritual equivalent of “Gilbert,” the name of the boy hero in one of my favorite novels, Anne of Green Gables. I’m sure that I expected have economic security and independence.

Did I get half of what I wanted? Well, I graduated from college, and I have a “Gilbert,” my man, T., who is a stellar human being. But I don’t have a “real” job, nor do I have economic security. I have neither children, nor a dog, nor a white picket fence. Hell, I don't even have a lawn.

It all goes back to this idea of expectations. In a way, Young Self is still at work in my head from time to time, still pushing for that American Dream, never quite content with the way things are. But then, my life has been much harder than I expected. Young Self probably knew that there was such a thing as mental illness but had only a vague idea of what that might be. Nowhere in the Grand Plan of Wendy's future did it involve manifesting a chronic mental illness, bipolar disorder, with catastrophic consequences attached. I was totally unprepared.

But Young Self basically had it right: laugh heartily, savor the precious moments. Keep Dreaming. I am still dreaming...I'm going to dream my way right into graduate school if I can help it. I may not be walking up the "primrose path," as Anne of Green Gables used to say, but I'm walking up my path, and the terrain is getting smoother all the time.

Young Self, after sober evaluation, I think I did right by you. I think I got more than half the Promise, and my glass is way more than half full.

Thanks for the vote of confidence!