Past Me, pre-pandemic, Please Pay Attention.

Dear 2019 me,

We need to talk. I have a couple of things to straighten out and you have some lessons to learn the hard way.

You’re on the verge of turning 23 and you worry like a middle-ager. Those little creases on the bridge of your nose where your eyebrows knit together whenever you’re confused, stressed, or concerned will only deepen with every day you spend not smiling. Please, for future me, calm down.

You are young and so is your life which, by the way, nobody expects to be perfect yet. A masterpiece takes a lifetime of work and two decades of learning will hardly make the cut, no matter how long you feel it’s been or how hard you feel you’ve worked.

Stop fretting about your art and writing – it will grow in time and even several years down the line, you’ll still have far to go. It’s a journey, not a race. Start enjoying the process before you smother your passion and contemplate giving up entirely because, I swear to you, it’s not worth the stress. These are, in my humble opinion, your two most empowering traits and integral to your individuality. I have every faith that an older version of me will thank both of us for the dedication and patience required to make so many good memories and great creations. Yes, it’s often an isolating experience – not that you know anything of isolation yet – but the reward is out of this world and the pride in your accomplishments will far surpass everything you’ve experienced before. This is the journey of your lifetime and it’s going nowhere anytime soon.

Now I have something important to share so please listen to your wiser self, more than you like to listen to your parents at least. While your creativity will thrive over time, the rest of your life will not grow from strength to strength in the same way. You’ll wake up all too soon to a global emergency that will last far longer than you ever anticipated and have consequences much greater and far-reaching than anything you’ve seen in your lifetime. As of writing this letter, I am eagerly awaiting my own letter from future me with an end date and some reassurance that the light at the end of the tunnel was worth the dreaded darkness.

On that note, there’s one other thing I implore you to pay attention to: your attitude. You’re not bad, you try to be kind, to live and let live if not have a positive impact on those around you but we both know all too well that apathy tends to take over a little too often.

Go outside, love, see the sights! Have a pint, or two, or three. Leave your comfort zone and be the one to make plans for just once. Shower others in more kindness than you’re used to and don’t apologise for it. Eat out. Spend your money on things that make you happy. Wander the streets of towns and cities you’re too lazy to visit. Stop and listen to that busker for a little while longer. Share coffee with other people. Book tickets to anywhere and everywhere. All the little things you grew bored of, do them in excess. Smile at strangers who smile back and tolerate the uncomfortable crowds over Christmas with grace.

Speaking of Christmas… Please, please, please find some joy in it. I know you’ve never been one for the hectic end of year celebrations but I also know you never once imagined being freed from the responsibility. It sounds incredible to pass up the chaos right now when it feels so forced upon you but having it taken away will feel far more oppressive – trust me.

Appreciate your boyfriend! Love him loudly, with boldness and ridiculousness of the sort you read about in those romance novels you love so much. Give him a break, he doesn’t know what he’s doing any more than you do, but I promise you that he’s trying his best. Regardless of your doubts and fears for the future of your relationship, you will be grateful for him in the coming years more than anything else in the world. Having him at your side through every uncertainty of this disaster will prove your greatest strength and one day you’ll see what a blessing he is to your life so, while you still can, give him all the happiness he deserves. He loves the outdoors, his need to explore and discover is so much deeper than yours, his passion for skateboarding is unmatched, and these things all have an expiration date that nobody in 2019 could have seen coming. I know you’re ambitious and you have all of your dreams that you’re desperate to chase but you have so much more time than he does! He needs you as much as you need him. If I could choose any single regret that hits harder than all the others, it’s that you didn’t spend every single day exploring the world together and giving him all of your free time.

Of course, you didn’t. You’re terrified of failing, you’re frustrated with having your time split a million different ways, and you’re desperate to tailor your whole life to your creative needs. As time has shown, you’re very much the indoor cat. Watching the world from your window, with sweet coffee in one hand and your pen in another, listening to soft acoustic music and telling the love of your life how much you adore him, is very much the image of perfection for you. Strangely, you’ll find the enforced stretches of time at home to be therapeutic and productive, seeking out value that others will fail to see. These things will become your strengths, but never quite strong enough to erase the knowledge that hindsight would have made the last few years of freedom much more fulfilling for yourself and everyone around you.

I am working on it, though. I’m making the most of every day and everything still available to me. We’re slowly planning for a future that still feels a lifetime away and growing as people every day, even when that means facing up to our mistakes and regrets with a boldness that I’m not yet sure we have. By the time this period has ended, I endeavour to be a better artist, a kinder girlfriend, and a little more thankful for all the tedium that has been stripped away along with the lives that have been impacted so far.

As I eagerly await correspondence from our future self – filled with reassurance and hope, with the blessed end date and some glimpse into our fantastic new life – I work everyday to be more mindful of who I am and what I have in the hope that I can forge the strong foundations of what will one day become my dream life. For now, I relish in the most poignant and significant time of our lives, enjoying every simple pleasure with sweet coffee in one hand and my pen in the other.

Kind regards,

2021 me.