Dear Future Me,

You only went and bloody did it, didn’t you? Did what we said you’d never do: grow up. Don’t you remember, we were supposed to always be young, always know what’s in the charts, always be down with the cool kids? But let’s face it, I’ve never been down with the cool kids, so there’s really no hope of that happening. Unless I’ve seriously underestimated myself.

My mind is boggling at what your life might be like. Are there flying cars? Do people live on Mars? Did you finally reduce your unread emails to zero? I can’t begin to imagine.

So, what do I hope of me in seventeen years’ time? Mainly I hope you’re happy. And not the kind of on-paper happy that’s all about shiny cars and executive flats. I mean proper cheeks-ache-from-too-much-smiling-and-laughing-type happy. I hope your life is busy and full of love and friendship and that you’re finally comfortable in your own skin. I hope that you are being true to yourself and that you’ve become the woman you should have been and the one that you wanted to be.

But most of all I hope that you haven’t fucked it up and that you didn’t lose him, again.

X x

What the hell am I doing? Emailing the future to tell myself that I hope I didn’t make the wrong decision when I’m not even taking my own advice at present. If there’s anything that I’ve learnt through all this, it’s that there’s no point in feeling afraid to be open about how you feel because if you don’t you’ll always be living with what-if.

What would have happened if I’d got Joel’s email? We’ll never know. But I have to stop living my life based on things that happened in the past. Dad’s right; I can’t change them. I can’t think any longer in ‘should have, would have, could haves’.

I shouldn’t be writing to future me talking about my regrets when it’s not too late to change things. I’ve spent years thinking I’d imagined the connection between me and Joel, and yet his email confirmed that I wasn’t crazy. And we never lost that connection, I’m sure of it. I’ve been in denial this whole time, but suddenly moments come to mind that give me hope he feels the same way: watching the sunrise; the night out on the campsite; Soph’s kitchen.