All in Time

five years ago, i wrote, "when people ask me where i want to be in five years, i say, 'right here, talking with you about where i want to be in five years and contemplating the strangeness of déjà vu.'"

i'm proud of that sentence and past-me for writing it, but if that were true, i'd be sitting on the benches of coffee society selling weed while promising it was all to finance a move to san francisco and college.

so i'm slightly more proud of present-me.

thirteen years ago, i wrote a letter to future-me (who is now very much past-me), explaining how fast i could run a mile and how much i enjoyed drawing spiderman and how funny jim carrey was. i think i also wrote about our dog, bear. the letter contained a drawing of spiderman, a coupon from our sixth grade auction, and several other things that any twelve year-old might've thought was important.

of course, the summer after writing that letter, my dad died and my entire life changed.

and then reading the old letter five years later-- at the age of seventeen-- i was thrown into an undesired funk-- being able to witness the way my brain worked just before all the chaos was not something i ever wanted.

in some ways, i'm happy to have that part of my life captured in sloppy sixth-grade cursive and i'm happy mr. ross actually sent it like he'd promised back in 1997.

but a larger part of me just wants to travel back in time and slap my prepubescent self in the face and scream, "you will not give a shit how fast you can run a mile five years from now. go ask your dad some questions about life, or happiness, or cheese-crackers, because he's going to die and you're going to be very good at drawing spiderman and very upset."

though, i guess even if i don't necessarily enjoy remembering life before certain truths, it is-- at the very least-- interesting to be reminded that i have no idea what might happen in the next year.

karisma's blog alerted me a more modern way of writing to your future-self. it's similar to my gmail time-traveling adventures, but more organized.

futureme.org is a website that will email you a letter in five, ten, twenty years-- so long as you keep the same email. i like to think of it as having a digital mr. ross-- just it doesn't sing embarrassing sixth grade songs with an acoustic guitar.