A letter from February 20th, 2021

Dear Erika, How are you? Today, you are in the middle to end (fingers crossed) of a pandemic and you are thinking about you. You are wondering who you'll be in the future and what you'll be doing. In the slowest year of your life (so far), five years feels like it's ages away. It's also the difference between being in your late twenties and mid-thirties. You simultaneously hope and worry that you'll be a different person entirely. Either way, you really can't fathom what your life will look like at that time and that's scary. All of this is to say that I (your past self) hope you (future self) are safe and I hope that you're happy as you're reading this. Today, you are twenty-eight. You got temporarily laid off from a job that you've been working toward for the past eight years. You have other small part-time work but none of it is stable nor rewarding enough to develop confidently into a career. You don't know how you're going to make ends meet for the next couple of months and for the first time in a long time, you feel both the need to and fear of making a major shift in your life. You are realizing that the vision that you had of your career-self when you were twenty didn't account for everything you'd learn and everything about you that would change by the time you were twenty-eight. You're wondering now if you've been wrong about what you *should* do and what you *want* to do all along. Have you figured it out yet? More than anything, you hope that you've developed more love for yourself and trust that allows you to follow your gut and pursue what you authentically want. In other words, you hope you're doing a better job today of living your own life as opposed to the life that others want you to live. By staying true to yourself, your past self hopes that you've found abundance and a true love for the work you do for others. And your past self hopes that work benefits you too. I wonder how the rest of your life looks. Today, you're deeply in love with Dylan who is away tending to his mother as her husband, Robert, is passing away. You've never experienced a love like this and you can't see a life without him though, of course, it must be possible. Still, you worry that this will be the last best thing to ever happen in your life and you worry about sabotaging it using your own hands. In case something did happen, today, your past self wants you, future self, to remember that he was kind and loving and patient. That may have changed, but today, you are both trying your best. Here are some of my hopes for you. I hope that you... - have a steady, supportive job that pays well with an employer who loves and respects you. the work is rewarding and helps you build meaning into your life. - are still with Dylan or someone who makes you feel equally safe and loved. - are still in therapy. - are choosing yourself in small ways every single day. today, you like to move, take photos, paint, read whatever the hell you want, and rest. - are still talking to your friends and that they are happy too. - feel a little more healed and that you have a home and somewhere, finally, to belong. I love you. Erika