A letter from July 15th, 2012

Dear Future Self, I am writing to you now, on the eve of my 20th birthday. I don’t exactly know what I want you to know that I don’t think you’ll know ten years from now. Who knows? Maybe I won’t change a bit and you’ll still be obsessed over the same boys, reading the same books, watching the same TV shows, and hoping one day you’ll grow into a woman that we both could respect. But I hope I’ve changed. I hope the two of us are different people. I am definitely not the person I want to be, so I hope you’ve gotten closer to that ideal…and not farther away. Let’s be honest with each other. This letter is me just making sure you haven’t lost sight of what’s important to me and if what’s important to me and what’s important to you are different, I won’t be angry. Because I’ll be you. Alright, enough of this meta stuff. Considering I’ve lived almost two decades already, I know that a lot can change in ten years. So here are some things that I hope have changed. First, if I am not in a committed relationship, I want you to be okay with being single. It’s not that I always want a relationship right now. I just struggle with the notion of being desirable. I always want to be desired…like wealth, drugs, or items. I hate the thought that my greatest need right now is to be needed. So, I hope you’ve conquered that, because I haven’t. Second, I hope that you are still friends with some of the friends I have now. Friendship is the noblest of all relationships. There is no obligation of blood or lust. There isn’t an end goal in friendship, so it makes it harder to maintain the relationship. However, when they are well maintained, there is love and trust and camaraderie. These are things that I hope you haven’t lost sight of. The people I am surrounded with now love me and I’m sure they love you too. They might have their quirks but we both know that you do too. Third, I hope you’re still on your quest to become a more interesting person. Unless you’re a billionaire, writing her latest novel, country hopping every month, and changing the world…then you can stop your quest. I hope you’ve learned to juggle, swim (recreationally), play an instrument, dance, distinguish plant life, and speak another language fluently. I hope you never stop reading, watching, and trying to understand. I hope you spend every day striving to learn more. I try my best now, but I hope your hunger for knowledge is fierce. These are the important things. The ones that I am really hoping that you’ve worked on, changed, or maintained. There are other goals I want you to reach like financial security, a better body image, and long hair. But knowing me now, I don’t think you’ll forget those things. So I guess what I want you to remember are the words that I live by now, so that they may help you in the future. “Make good art.” “Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.” “I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.” Also, I love you. Don’t forget that either. - Jessica Johnson