So there's this really cool website called FutureMe.org that you should really check out, especially if you're at all interested in self-reflection or journaling. The concept is simple - you write whatever you want to tell your future self, pick a date in the future to send your message to, and supply them with your email address. Then, on whatever future day you picked, you get a surprise email from the past!
(You can read more about the concept here.)
I wrote myself a letter back in September 2014 to be delivered one year into the future, and I received the email a couple months ago (Sept. 2015).
I started the email by asking myself how some of my friends and family were doing. (Has so-and-so made that change they wanted to? Gotten that job/graduated/moved/etc.?) I also asked about myself:
"Am I making money from my art now? Do I have a thriving Etsy shop? Am I painting and drawing more?"
"How are my novels coming along? I'm just finishing the first two (again) this week and then I plan start looking into sending feelers out to agents and publishers while I continue on writing the rest of the series. Am I doing this?"
"Did we get a puppy? How is Tyler doing? He's about to turn 16 this year and though he's a bit blind and deaf and occasionally unsteady on his feet, he seems pretty good for almost 16!"
I was amazed at how accurate many of my predictions turned out to be. (Though they were written in question form, really they were predictions.) We did get a puppy. I did make (some) money on my art. I have started to send out query letters for my story. I did quit substitute teaching. Even mundane things came true - we did plant new trees in our backyard.
Of course, some things didn't happen - but they were all things I had little/no control over, so I can hardly be blamed. Like putting Tyler down three months shy of his seventeenth birthday. Or things I expected to happen in the lives of my family/friends that didn't (yet) pan out.
What really struck me though was the tone of the email, especially at the end. It started out innocently enough, making predictions about what might be going on in my life and the lives of those closest to me, but it ended with sort of a desperate plea that the future would be better than where I was at the time. Honestly, I sound almost legitimately depressed - but I think I was just having a really bad day on that particular September 2014 day, and that it was in fact my not feeling great and being worried about stagnancy that prompted me to write the letter in the first place. I don't think I felt like that every day.
"Tell me good news. Tell me everything is okay. At the very least, tell me that it is not ridiculous to have these dreams. Tell me I am happy, or nearly happy, or working toward being happy. Tell me something has changed - for the better - in the last 12 months that made those 12 months worth living. Tell me that all I am feeling now is just a distant memory. Tell me that life is great. And tell the truth."
It surprises me though how desperate I sounded. I guess it's good that it surprised me - because that means I haven't felt that down in awhile.
I got a little dramatic in that letter, but I've also used FutureMe for more "everyday" things - like sending myself reminders. I recently hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for my family (my first ever hosting!) and though it all turned out pretty well, there were a couple small changes I plan to do in the future, or things I wanted to remind myself about what did work best - i.e. "Make fewer desserts" and "Don't put foil on the turkey drumsticks too soon" and the recipe for the sparkling cider punch that was so delicious. So I wrote a quick email to myself with that information and sent it off to November 2016 so it'll appear in my inbox and remind me of precisely the things I wanted to remember.
I love stuff like this, though. That's sort of what these blog posts are too - memories. I don't tend to go back and reread my blogs much after I write them, but when I write in my personal journals, I do go back and reread. I have nearly forty journals (small notebooks) I've kept over the years - from my first diary in first grade (filled with atrocious spelling) to my current journal, which has a great picture of Rome on the cover and a map of the city on the back cover. Every few years, I dig all my old journals out and reread them; I'm in the process of typing them up onto my computer so I have a digital version (in case, God forbid, anything should happen to the journals someday). I don't type every word, but I type the "good stuff" - the stuff I definitely want to remember.
It's amazing to me, going back and rereading those journals, how much has changed - and how much hasn't. It's like reading about history, and how everyday people lived in ancient Rome, or what the ancient Roman emperors and philosophers wrote about. Sometimes I'm like, wow, humans have NOT changed in the last two millennia; we have exactly the same concerns and reflections and ideas now that we had back then. And other times I'm like, fuck no, life is so much better now than it was then! Ancient history sounds awful! I'm so glad that's behind us. Rereading old journals is just like that - but on a personal scale. I get a really big kick out of it.
(You can read more about the concept here.)
I wrote myself a letter back in September 2014 to be delivered one year into the future, and I received the email a couple months ago (Sept. 2015).
I started the email by asking myself how some of my friends and family were doing. (Has so-and-so made that change they wanted to? Gotten that job/graduated/moved/etc.?) I also asked about myself:
"Am I making money from my art now? Do I have a thriving Etsy shop? Am I painting and drawing more?"
"How are my novels coming along? I'm just finishing the first two (again) this week and then I plan start looking into sending feelers out to agents and publishers while I continue on writing the rest of the series. Am I doing this?"
"Did we get a puppy? How is Tyler doing? He's about to turn 16 this year and though he's a bit blind and deaf and occasionally unsteady on his feet, he seems pretty good for almost 16!"
I was amazed at how accurate many of my predictions turned out to be. (Though they were written in question form, really they were predictions.) We did get a puppy. I did make (some) money on my art. I have started to send out query letters for my story. I did quit substitute teaching. Even mundane things came true - we did plant new trees in our backyard.
Of course, some things didn't happen - but they were all things I had little/no control over, so I can hardly be blamed. Like putting Tyler down three months shy of his seventeenth birthday. Or things I expected to happen in the lives of my family/friends that didn't (yet) pan out.
What really struck me though was the tone of the email, especially at the end. It started out innocently enough, making predictions about what might be going on in my life and the lives of those closest to me, but it ended with sort of a desperate plea that the future would be better than where I was at the time. Honestly, I sound almost legitimately depressed - but I think I was just having a really bad day on that particular September 2014 day, and that it was in fact my not feeling great and being worried about stagnancy that prompted me to write the letter in the first place. I don't think I felt like that every day.
"Tell me good news. Tell me everything is okay. At the very least, tell me that it is not ridiculous to have these dreams. Tell me I am happy, or nearly happy, or working toward being happy. Tell me something has changed - for the better - in the last 12 months that made those 12 months worth living. Tell me that all I am feeling now is just a distant memory. Tell me that life is great. And tell the truth."
It surprises me though how desperate I sounded. I guess it's good that it surprised me - because that means I haven't felt that down in awhile.
I got a little dramatic in that letter, but I've also used FutureMe for more "everyday" things - like sending myself reminders. I recently hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for my family (my first ever hosting!) and though it all turned out pretty well, there were a couple small changes I plan to do in the future, or things I wanted to remind myself about what did work best - i.e. "Make fewer desserts" and "Don't put foil on the turkey drumsticks too soon" and the recipe for the sparkling cider punch that was so delicious. So I wrote a quick email to myself with that information and sent it off to November 2016 so it'll appear in my inbox and remind me of precisely the things I wanted to remember.
I love stuff like this, though. That's sort of what these blog posts are too - memories. I don't tend to go back and reread my blogs much after I write them, but when I write in my personal journals, I do go back and reread. I have nearly forty journals (small notebooks) I've kept over the years - from my first diary in first grade (filled with atrocious spelling) to my current journal, which has a great picture of Rome on the cover and a map of the city on the back cover. Every few years, I dig all my old journals out and reread them; I'm in the process of typing them up onto my computer so I have a digital version (in case, God forbid, anything should happen to the journals someday). I don't type every word, but I type the "good stuff" - the stuff I definitely want to remember.
It's amazing to me, going back and rereading those journals, how much has changed - and how much hasn't. It's like reading about history, and how everyday people lived in ancient Rome, or what the ancient Roman emperors and philosophers wrote about. Sometimes I'm like, wow, humans have NOT changed in the last two millennia; we have exactly the same concerns and reflections and ideas now that we had back then. And other times I'm like, fuck no, life is so much better now than it was then! Ancient history sounds awful! I'm so glad that's behind us. Rereading old journals is just like that - but on a personal scale. I get a really big kick out of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment