Dear Future Me

To put the strange event in a bit more context, I had just returned home from a great dinner with Julieanne at Blancmange, a new and very tasty restaurant in Petersham. It was still fairly early so I decided to check my email only to find this:

Dear FutureMe,

Happy 30th Birthday!

Here’s hoping you finally got that thesis done. Me (June 2005) is currently having a hard time staying focused and writing this is yet another form of procrastination. Even in the face of all these obstacles I’m placing in my own way, I hope that I/You have completed the damn thing and that, at the very least, the reviewers are reading over it.

If this is the case, I hope life on the other side of the tunnel is fantastic!

I was a little tipsy when I first read it and so had to give it a few more scans before I convinced myself that I really had sent myself a timed email from 2005.

I did this using FutureMe, a free service which allows you to write an email to someone but not have it sent until some time in the future. It’s a really simple idea that obviously appealed to the me of June 2005 and pleasantly surprised the me of October 2006.

Fortunately, I have finished the damn thing and it is currently with the reviewers. I think my reaction would have left me feeling very differently if I was still struggling away at it. Now all I need is some way to tell PastMe that it’s all going to be okay, and that I needn’t worry so much. Life is pretty fantastic out this side of the tunnel.

Oh, and that I’m actually 31, not 30, here in October 2006. If I can’t even get my own future birthday right when I’m 29 what hope do I have now?