By Abigail Gan | Staff Writer
Remember those letters you wrote to yourself back in middle school or high school?
Let me set the scene: It’s seventh grade homeroom, and your teacher hands an envelope and sheet of paper to everyone. She tells you to think four years into the future and envision yourself. Then, she instructs you to write a letter to yourself for junior year. With anticipation and excitement, you get out your pen and try to think about what life might be like in four years. You write your hopes and dreams for high school, and you try to figure out how best to capture your current point of life so junior year you will remember it. Code names, insignificant inside jokes and middle school relationship drama litter the contents of your letter.
Growing up, I moved a lot — like at least every three years. There were two or three occasions in my K-12 life where my teacher had us write a letter to some version of our future selves. The only problem was that I was never there to receive the letter when the time came.
Around eighth grade, I decided to take charge of this practice myself, writing my own letters and keeping them myself. This way, I would be sure to receive them, and there was so much more flexibility in regard to letters. I decided I would write letters when I felt like there were big events or dates, or just when I felt like it. I wrote them for shorter periods of time, perhaps for a big event or audition six months out, as well as for longer periods, perhaps a decade.
Writing letters to yourself, while it might sound silly, is a way of documenting moments and creating a time capsule of sorts. By writing letters, you talk about your present circumstances and are able to reflect on what you would like yourself to remember or know in the future. You are able to learn more about yourself, process and reevaluate what is truly important in your life.
Reading these letters has the potential to be a little painful and cringeworthy. After all, revisiting a past time can be hard to see after growth. It is also a very rewarding practice, though. Through reading the letters, we can reflect back on moments in our lives and how far we have progressed. We can put ourselves back in those shoes and see what was truly important to us at a certain time.
So, next time you go through a very hard moment, receive some great news, celebrate a birthday, earn a leadership position or job or just want to write to your future self, whip out a pen and paper and do it. Date it, and address it with the date your future self should open it. Sit and revel in the unknowns of the future and the beauty and fleetingness of the present.
