May 2021
Dear Future Becca,
Don’t adjust your calendar, it’s not christmas yet. I know you write yourself a letter every New Year, making predictions and summarising the year that’s just passed you by. However, this isn’t one of those. I read a version of these letters in the Guardian this morning- a couple of journalists and broadcasters were writing notes to themselves to look back on next year when the worst of this is over. In the spirit of looking forward, I decided to do the same.
I know you woke up this morning questioning everything and you went to bed feeling like that too. It’s become a familiar feeling in your lockdown. You want to know that you’re going down the right path and are doing everything that you can to get there. When really all you want to know is that you’re good enough to get there in the first place. I doubt in a year’s time that you will feel any different because it’s you and you overthink things. It’s a bad habit, you should kick that. That being said, I hope you remember how important Lockdown has been for you. Not in a sense of relaxing your mind or finding some kind of inner peace because I’m not a miracle worker but you need to be around things that are uncertain for a while. It’s good to not know where you are going when this is over. It’s good to not have a plan. ( Phew that was difficult for me to get down )
In so many ways, Lockdown was your comfort zone. You were left to read and write and contemplate your own thoughts like you were a damn Austen novel. Of course, you also know the flip side to that. The side that wants to explore the world and take every opportunity that is handed to you. That thirst to explore the world, the one that you have been missing for a while, has come back like you’re Britney in 2008. I don’t want you to lose that excitement to explore once your normal life returns. You owe it to the girl who is sitting inside anxious to discover a world that feels so far away right now. You owe it to me to see it.
I know you’re doing your best. You’re keeping your friends and family close. You miss them. As painful as it is, I want you to remember that so that now when they phone you at inopportune times or when you’re mad at them or maybe they are even mad at you, you won’t be too proud to show that you care. Instead, you’ll smile and embrace them, remembering the time that you couldn’t do so.
Before I go ( Ha. Lockdown) , in May 2021 and whatever that looks like to you, I hope that you are still making memories. You’ve always been good at that, taking pictures that nobody wants and keeping them for rainy days. I hope you’re still doing that. Right now, you’re trying, you are writing murder mysteries and calling your friends and uncovering new places in a town that you’ve lived your whole life in. But it’s not easy. The days have started blending like an expressive art student’s palette. Routine is the enemy of creativity and you feel like it’s next victim. Be brave, 2021 me, take risks and have fun. Live your days differently and unexpectedly because there is a whole world outside.
Good luck out there,
2020 Becca
