Letter From the Past

Have you ever written a letter to your future self? I've written one. Or, I thought I wrote only one. I went looking for it as something to write about here, and instead found another one that I wrote to be opened in 2012. I'd completely forgotten this second one. Here it is, with a bit of editing, due to a) personal stuff, and b) clarifying details that wouldn't be obvious to readers here.

While I'll mostly reserve my comments for after the letter, I want to mention PoP before hand so that you'll know what I'm talking about in just one read through. Pride of Portland (PoP) is a barbershop chorus that's part of Sweet Adelines International. The short explanation is that it's a group of women spread out over the globe who love to sing barbershop, wear too much makeup, wear lots of sequins, and hold musical competitions every year. My first international competition with PoP was in Vegas, and my second (and last) one was in Hawaii. I found that Hawaii agreed with me much more than Vegas, though I was too focused on the competition to really get to enjoy the place properly.

November 24th, 2007

I'm 18 years old as I write this.

I'm currently taking Poetry and Math 60 at Portland Community College. By the time I read this I hope to be working in a library, and possibly making plans to major in English at a 4 year college. I've not even begun to think about which one I want to go to yet.

I went to my first poetry reading today! It was at [I'm keeping this private], and I read my poem "He Fought His Heart" for the group. I plan to continue going to that group.

Working on music for PoP is a challenge, but hopefully I'll get better at it, and am already making progress on it becoming easier. Last year in Vegas we took 14th, and next year we go to Hawaii! I'm excited.

I'm thinking that I just might get some of my poems published. But it'll be a while before I try to go about it, I think.

I wonder -- might I be married, with kids, when I read this? Or will I still be single? Currently I've never been on a date, and never been kissed.

To date I only have one poem memorized -- Ogden Nash's "The Turtle," or I think that's the title. Anyways, I think my future self will know what my current self is talking about. :)

Well, I might add some more later, but that's it for now! 

See ya!

Sarita :P

"See ya!"

...and the above letter is exactly why I have trouble making long term plans these days. Give it a few years, or less, and my plans evolve into something else.

At the time that I wrote this letter I was pretty intimidated at the thought of going to a university. It seemed like a huge commitment (which yeah, it is) and I wasn't sure whether it was for me. So my idea around this time was to maybe get a two year degree that would aid me in getting a library job, then maybe think about going to a university. And of course I was thinking an English degree since that's what I was taking every term at Portland Community College. May as well stick with what I was already nuts about.

I'm certainly not complaining about my decision to pursue an English degree before getting settled in my own place, as I believe was assumed though not stated in the letter. But it's an example of how a long term plan I have one year isn't what I want the next year. Another example is when I picked out my Music Therapy degree, then eventually realized that it was a bad idea. I guess I just don't know for sure what I really want, career wise, though something in a library still sounds awesome.

As for poetry, Fall 2007 was the term I got really into writing poems. It all started when I turned a dream into a haiku immediately after waking up one morning, or maybe I started writing the poem in my dream. Whichever way, that opened the floodgates, and I wrote a lot of poetry until my inspiration more or less dried up. Some of my poems were good, most of them not. One was good enough to get published in the magazine Cricket less than two years after the above letter, which I was beyond excited about since it was my favorite magazine at the time. The poem mentioned in the letter is still unpublished, however, and revisiting it recently I could see that it needs some TLC.

Oh yeah, and "The Turtle"....shame on younger me for not knowing the name for certain. Come on, how difficult could it have been to remember the two word name if I memorized the poem itself?

I'm still unmarried and there are no plans for kids, but I'm definitely not single and am lucky enough to be very much in love with an amazing man. ♡

Have you ever written a letter to yourself? Future or past? What did you put in your letter?