A letter from Jul 5th, 2021

Dear Tom, This is a letter from your past: 05/07/21, to be precise. You're writing this whilst you're sat in the school library. CN is writing their letter at the same time. It's a little exercise you came up with in the last week of term - the last term you'll do at this school (for now - maybe)! It's been a tumultuous year, full of ups and downs, but things are starting to change - both in the country and in your life. You're about to marry the love of your life (and panicking about all the small details) and you're about to start your teacher training. I'd say we're pretty optimistic, but you're also absolutely terrified about the paperwork, planning and admin side of it, as you're a total scatterbrain. So I hope you worked hard on that side of things! What I hope for you, FutureTom, is that you've managed to achieve your goals and make some progress in your career. It's been really tough jumping from job to job, but finally it seems like you're on the cusp of having some stability and pursuing something you really want to do: helping people get to where they need to go. Whatever happens, I really hope we've managed to follow that goal and found something stable to help both BG and yourself do what you need to do. As for the world, well - you're constantly putting it to rights, of course. The biggest issue in the world at the moment, it seems, is systemic racism - it's coming up constantly in the classroom, and quite rightly too. It seems like change is on the horizon, but it's been there for a while, and action needs to be taken. I'm worried about the political direction of this country, and the western world in general, towards nationalism and 'harsh rhetoric'. I hope logic and compassion win out over fear and reactionary attitudes. You're finally starting to meet up with friends again, and after such long absences, it's really good to appreciate how great the people you know are and how much you love them. You're praying that things keep getting better COVID-wise that you can keep seeing them. You've always been a bit of a social butterfly, but stop second-guessing yourself. You love these people and they love you. Stop thinking you're annoying, for crying out loud! It's really difficult to bottle everything that you're thinking into one tiny compact space where you can feel you've done everything justice - there's so much to do, think about and consider. I'd forgotten about Grandma's 90th birthday until just now - she's just had that, and she had an absolute blast. I think it's almost impossible to think about life without her presence, so I'm going to continue to push that thought out of my head! It's hard to be inspirational to your future self - I don't exactly know what you'll need inspiring with - but I really hope that we've stuck to our **** and gotten what we've wanted. We spent so long giving up on ourselves and what we wanted, believing that we weren't good enough, smart enough or capable enough to be where we wanted to be. You do deserve things, sometimes, y'know. Be kind to yourself. Stay classy, TB, 05/07/21