A letter from Jun 23rd, 2021

Dear Future Me, Today you are finishing up your last day with your grade 5 students in Egypt. In a few weeks you are moving back to Canada. You are nervous about living with your parents again. You haven't always got along with them all that well in the past, and you're worried that moving home will re-aggravate that. Also, trying to get hired in this COVID economy is a bit of a crapshoot. Hopefully, by the time you are reading this, you will have been proved wrong. If life goes according to plan (but when has that ever happened?) you will own your own home by now, probably somewhere out on the east coast. Maybe you're married, and have a kid. I hope you're with somebody that treats you well, and that whoever he is, he adds something meaningful to your life. That's what we want now in any event. Maybe you're doing something totally different. Whatever it is, I hope that you're happy, and if you're not, I hope that you are doing something to try and fix that. It has been a weird year. We are still in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. We've had to transition between in-person learning and online three separate times this year and the rest of the time we've had this god-awful cohort system. I'm imagining that the pandemic is finally over where (when?) you are. I hope you are appreciating things like not having to wear a mask and being able to go out, because I am missing that a LOT right now. A few random facts you might be interested to read in the future: - You are currently obsessed with 40s music. - Actually you are kind of just obsessed with the 40s and 50s generally, in terms of fashion and culture (not the values though, obviously racism is awful and human rights are important). - You are taking an online permaculture course and fantasizing wildly about living on some kind of homestead. - You spend way too much time playing on your iPad and worrying that it is ******* your creativity. You're addicted to solitaire and this stupid project runway game that you can feel ******* your brain cells and play endlessly anyway. - You are struggling your way through writing 2 books and a fanfiction story. - Your best friend is Scott Best, and your best friends in Egypt are Mike Bilyj and Louis and Nicole. - Your mom is in recovery after chemo. Her hair is just growing back. - You are reading the second Outlander book. - If you had a million dollars you would travel around the world, buy a house by the ocean, and invest the rest to help you retire one day. - Your big goals right now are to get a permanent, full-time teaching position, travel to 30 countries before your 30th birthday, and buy a house. Have we changed that much now? I suppose I will have to just wait and find out. All the best, Caleigh in 2021