time warp

I forgot to mention how a few days before New Year's, I found an old envelope in my high school journal. It must've come from some sort of a magazine, I honestly don't remember, but it was a pre-printed note to my future self. I wrote, signed and sealed it on Jan 1, 2000, to be opened 10 years later. It's a good thing I kept it all these years, over various moves from home to college, to years after college, to grad school, all across the country. Come to think of it, this journal and the letter might have come with me to France on my study abroad. This is a well-traveled little time-capsule.

I was so impressed with my sentimental and planning-ahead 15-year-old self, that I decided to make this a tradition. Every 10 years, I will write myself a little note to be opened in the future. So this is what we did on New Year's Eve 2009-2010, as a kind of family activity. And who would've thought (not my then-teenage self, that's for sure) that ten years from when the original note was sealed, I'd be writing the next one in a house in Reno, next to my husband and across from various American members of the family I now call my own. Of course, I can't wait (well, ok, I can) to see what my 35-year-old self will think of me today. Let's just hope she doesn't notice my current cynicism.

So this is what I wrote then, 10 years ago:

The best things in my life are:
Stephen [then boyfriend], Ellen [then-and-now best friend], water, air, love, friends, still enough money to go to Boston, (being able to sleep)

I'm glad water and air are at the top of my list. Because, you know, I probably wouldn't be here without those.

My personal goals for the future are:
Be better so people wouldn't be disappointed, get into a good college and continue further, be stronger

Damn, I'm still working on that first one.

My wishes for the future of the world are:
No more nuclear bombs, less people, be friendlier overall, accept abortions, improve medicine + governments, overall satisfaction.

These are some lofty dreams there, teenage self! No nuclear bombs? Accept abortions? Improve governments? Luckily, there are laws in place to control some of these now, though that last one may still take a while.

In all honesty though, this is an interesting glimpse into my younger self. I had no idea I was so concerned with the state of the world. I mean, less people? Did I somehow know that this very issue would be very much on my mind ten years later? Maybe we don't change quite as much as we think we do. Or at least, somewhere at the core, we're still... so unmistakably ourselves.

And to my future self: I promise not to make fun of your wrinkles, if you don't make fun of my naïveté. Deal?