Last December I wrote an email to my future self as part of a work annual planning meeting. I scheduled it to be sent on the first Monday in December a year from then. It arrived in my inbox this morning.
I was scared to read it. I didn’t recall what I wrote but I knew that this year was not at all what I expected.
When I did read it, I was at least grateful that the letter was mostly about work life (and I was wise enough not to be too specific on personal life). But work was a wild ride this year too. Through all the ups and downs, looking at all I wanted to do, I have to wonder if I made much progress. I wrote in the letter “This has been a year of waves. Ebbs and flows. The cresting, the falling, at times it felt like drowning. But you swam. And basked in the sun.”
I’m not sure I made it to the swimming. Definitely not the basking in the sun. My year of waves and I treaded water.
I read a horoscope today and it slipped between my seams like a razor blade:
Accept care: For the ways you work yourself until you’re too tired to care for your body — mentally, physically, or both — often because it is your literal job. For how your social world can feel too small and too large (or at least, demanding) at the same time. For all the many small things in your daily life that numb you to joy and delight, that feel too mundane to complain about. For the poems you aren’t writing and the songs you haven’t finished. For the ways you blame yourself for this, as though you somehow aren’t affected by your world.
“For all the ways you blame yourself for this . . .”
I don’t take as many deep breaths anymore. I take a couple now, typing in bed. Thinking about what kind of letter I’ll write for next year.
But bless me, I’ve written plenty of future self-letters before, so I read through that email to the end, past all the hope and optimism and productivity until I find what I really need. I closed the email with this:
“I love you so much. Even if I’ve lied and this year was a disaster and you don’t know how you’re going to make it through right now. I love you so, so much past self. And future selves too. You are doing the best you can in the moment and that’s always, always been enough.”
I lied. This year was a disaster. And I can love myself through it. And that’s enough.
With Love,
Natalie