Dear Me

It was the year 2029. At 43 years of age, I unlocked the door to my small apartment and dumped the mountain of student’s assignments on the table. Over the weekend, I would be marking them, rather than enjoying a workless two days. I had loved this work once. Twenty years ago, I had met a man who introduced me to a career I had become intoxicated by. Oh, I’d had dreams; so many different things I’d wanted to do. But I’d stuck with this, because I’d been too afraid to take risks and deviate from it. Too afraid that I’d lose my only link to him if I did other things as well. And the regret I’d felt when I’d lost him - my wonder man - was something I’d never been able to come to terms with. I’d become a prominent lecturer at a highly recognised university just as I’d wanted when I met him. But that was all I had. My career and a modicum of acquaintances, but everything else I’d wanted to do became neglected - now collecting dust in the vaults of my memory. And I certainly had no-one special to speak of. No family of my own. I was utterly alone. The truth is, I’d always wondered whether I really did love the subject I taught, or whether it was simply the man who had brought it into my life that I had fallen for. For so many years, I had done it out of obligation to an outdated need to continue his work, but it had never really felt like it was mine.

Rubbing my temple and setting the kettle to boil, I remembered the strange man in the market place. At the time, I hadn’t given a moment’s thought to the possibility that it might actually work, but the idea that I had a chance to go back - to change my life - was remarkably tempting. At the very least, there’d be no harm in simply writing the letter; if only to appease my conscience and express the thoughts that were weighing on me. Pouring myself a cup of tea from the now boiled kettle, I took a seat at the table, shoved the pile of student’s assignments to one side and began to write the letter to my 21 year old self.

Dear Me,

I am writing to you now, my 43 year old self, to explain a little about the person I became. That is, the person you will become if you don’t make some fundamental changes to your outlook on life. You feel as though you are at a cross-road. I remember it well. At the tender age of 21, you are on the cusp of adulthood, though you have already seen more in your short years than most people would in an entire life time. It is a dreadful weight. The cross-road you are now at is presenting you with a number of choices. It doesn’t mean changing paths, so much as retaining flexibility in the way you see things.

The pain you carry as a result of your past makes it difficult for you to trust. I implore you not to become too involved with the demon of mistrust. Because of its heckling, I ended up with only my work as a life companion (the teaching path is a viable one for you to choose, though; I became a very successful lecturer over the years). The advice I have for your first concerns a man who has been in your life for barely a couple of months. He introduced you to a path you desperately want to walk and thanks to him you find it beautiful, and an exhilarating prospect. I want to tell you to admit to yourself that you love him. Yes, it is safe for you to do that - you will later come to see him as your soul mate. The fact is he wants to know you, just as you want to know him. Let him get past your defences of mistrust, my dear tender-hearted self. He is truly the best of men. I tell you this because I do not want you to end up regretting the time you are wasting procrastinating over whether to let him into your heart, the way I did. You see, he died two years after I met him, and I always regretted the way I proverbially seemed to hold him at arm’s length, even though my entire being ached with the need to love him. I wish now, with every day that passes and with every breath in my body, that I had told him what he meant to me. I want you to promise me something. When you find out that he’s ill, give your pride a kick up the arse and just ask if you can visit him, will you. You’ll know who to ask at the time, and you won’t get a chance to see him again if you don’t.

After he goes, though, you will feel empty and disillusioned for a time. This is understandable, and your spiritual beliefs will pull you through it. But my advice here is vitally important. Don’t let yourself get swallowed up in it! By all means, complete the honours course you are applying for - I did very well, and even though I carried a lot of added responsibility with it also being my first year as a teacher, it was also a very rewarding experience. You must not feel that you have to chain yourself to this one path out of obligation though. Of course, it will continue to be very rewarding, but I don’t think he’d want it to come at the expense of your other dreams. You know what I mean. There are a great many things that you want to do with your life, and trust me there is room for it all!

I am writing to tell you all this because I don’t want you to waste your years and end up regretting that you didn’t do so many of the things that you wanted to do. It took me far too long to realise how empty my life is. Don’t turn into me. Allow yourself to take risks, to trust again, to love again, and most of all to take action! There is no better time to do the things you want to do than RIGHT NOW! Here is where your life starts! For your sake, don’t become a sad and empty person like me.

All my love,
Me
xxx

Wiping the tears from my eyes, I set my pen down and folded the letter, sliding it into an envelope. I wrote on the envelope the special address the man from the market had given me, and got up to place the envelope in the sink, throwing a match in after it and letting it burn. A few minutes later, a gust of wind picked up the ashes and swept them out of the window and back over the annals of time, putting them back together again as they travelled further and further back. Eventually, they became a whole entity again, and came to land on the bed spread of my 21 year old self back in the year 2007. There it waited patiently for me to come home, waited to give me the advice that could change the course of my entire life...

~ FIN