A Letter to Myself in 10 Years

One of the items on my list of 101 in 1001 list (I'm attempting to finish 101 things in 1001 days, and the deadline is SOON!) is to write a letter to myself to open in 10 years.  It was one of the things I could do last Sunday, so here it is.

October 27, 2013

Dearest Jerbear,

This letter is reaching you less than two months away from your 40^th birthday. I'm assuming you're freaking out, I would be (heh, get it?). I hope that google docs still exists in 40 years, otherwise this letter will be non-existent, as I'm fairly certain that this MacBook would be the most archaic laptop in use in 2023. Unless I become a mega-hipster in the next ten years, in which case... that's so uncool, it's cool. Congrats almost 40 Jeri.

Right now I (we?) are finally hitting our stride with life. We just wrapped up a tough two years of grad school. During those two years we FINALLY landed a job in our dream library after trying for seven long years to snag a position there. You recently got passed up for a promotion, but that surely doesn't squash our passion for librarianship, and bringing awesome programming to teens at your/our/my (this is really hard) brand new library branch. I have no doubt that when you're reading this you are currently the best librarian the library system has ever seen. Keep up the good work! Reward yourself with a sassy new cardigan and/or glasses. I also hope that you've gotten a chance to sit on the Printz or Newbery award committee, because that would be a dream come true.

I hope that you're still a runner in your almost 40s. I hope that your knees aren't completely shot because of my crappy running form for so many years. The good news is: we finally get an extra five minute cushion now for that BQ, so let's get to it, eh? More importantly I hope that you still love running, even more than I do now. Some days I don't love running, but I know that I'm a runner deep down, and when I re-find that head over heels in love with running passion again, we'll never again have a break up. Also, full disclosure: I hope this happens long, LONG before you read this letter. :)

By the way, are you still using emoticons in emails/texts/etc.? I wonder what those will be replaced with.... emojis are pretty amazing, but I can only imagine there will be something even crazy awesomer in ten years... can't wait.

In a few short days you are getting ready to embark on your first novel writing experience! I hope it goes well. I hope we have many more attempts at this in the next ten years, and maybe even a couple we feel are well-written enough to show to other human eyes, and maybe even get published!

I hope that you're happily in love with yourself in ten years, and give yourself the opportunity to love someone else and be loved back. If you're a mother, I hope you're only a fraction of the neurotic mom you envision yourself to be. If you're not a mother, I know you're the best pug mom in all of the land, rescuing all the pugs your living situation will allow (but, um, not so many that you border being featured on Hoarders, because that'd be embarrassing). I hope you have a super large bed with all of these pugs, because I can imagine it will get really cramped with more than one snoring away in there.

I hope you're happy with how you've turned out as a person, but I hope you continue to be a better version of yourself every day.

Best,

You

P.S. You should totally write one of these today to your 50 year old self!