An Open Letter to My Future

Yesterday, I submitted this open letter to my future to McSweeney's Internet Tendency. Time has yet to tell if they like it, and given past experiences, they probably won't think it good enough to publish. And I can accept that. Although it would be very nice, publishing is not the point with which I'm concerned. The point is that I wrote something and sent it off. That is in itself the accomplishment, and anything else simply adds to that sense of accomplishment. Take that, Fate - even if McSweeney's ignores me, I won't succumb to life's apathetic feelings for me. I'll pick myself up, dust myself off, and continue moving forward, writing nonsensical things for my own enjoyment.

And if anyone is out there, for your enjoyment, too.

Dear Future,

I don’t hear much from you these days. Times were in the past that you and I would gallivant around and have a merry old time reading, imagining fanciful tales of lands far away, teasing older siblings, with nary a care in the world. Why have you forsaken me thus, Future?

You and I made plans. We would idly dream while sitting beneath the ash tree in the summertime, relishing the feeling of the grass against my calves and arms and toes, building castles together out of sky and light and clouds during those bright days.

I was going to run stables with the fastest racehorse in the world, Future. I was going to be a writer and live in a secluded lighthouse by the bay, and you were going to be right there with me. Do you remember when I said I would be an actress, a veterinarian, a world-renowned Celtic harpist? A paleontologist in the opal mines of Australia, finding the opalized skeleton of a plesiosaur? Well, look at me now, Future. A college student. Don’t you dare tell me I still have potential, that I still have the rest of my life before me. I’m an English major who has a fear of Organic Chemistry, so being a veterinarian, let alone a medical doctor, is out, Future. No symposiums on the zygapophyses in marine dinosaurs’ spinal columns for me, either. Based on your track record, I’m pretty sure being an actress and the horse stables are out, too.

Future, I have not been lazy. Didn’t you get my resume? I sent you fifteen different iterations of it. Yes, I did use the same overworn quotation from Nelson Mandela in every cover letter, but you of all entities should know how hard it is to start one. And at this point in our relationship, I didn’t think you would mind.

Even this summer, Future, I’m planning to run away to India to serve orphaned children. Do you approve, Future? Well, do you? Is anything I say getting through your thick, Fate-ridden skull?

And now we’ve come to this, Future. Because of your silent flakiness, I have decided that you’re out, too. You have left me alone with dreams that will never be fulfilled. I gave you so much imagination, so much potential, and look what you have done with it. My potential has dribbled away like spit on a baby’s chin. So all I am going to do for now is just sit, looking out the window into the rain and thinking of the upcoming days without you. Thanks, Future, for all the dreams gone by. I don’t need you or your false promises of aerie heights anymore. From here on out, I’ll make my own way.

Regards,

Elizabeth Lain