Letter from the Past

I spent yesterday afternoon sorting through notes and mementos in another big clear-out as we prepare to move our things from the Historical House.

To my surprise, I found a fat envelope addressed to me with instructions, in familiar writing, not to open it until 2001.

As it is now 2018, that was quite a shock. My heart sped up, my breathing went funny and my hands shook.

I tore open the envelope and a square of blue tartan wool cloth fell out---which I knew meant I had written this as a teenager. It must have been snipped from the underside hem of my high school uniform kilt.

There followed a green metallic disc with the name of a short-story series I had written stamped on it by some forgotten machine and a crucifix from a broken rosary. Tiny presents to myself from myself well over 20 years ago.

I must have got the idea from Lucy Maud Montgomery's Emily of New Moon. I believe it is Emily who wrote her grown-up self a letter as a teen. When I turned 40, I wondered idly if I hadn't written a letter to myself, as I had a dim memory of doing so. Well, I did, and it didn't seem to occur to mini-me that I might not find it until 2018. I read it wearing bifocals.

Bifocals.

The letter was written from the same house my parents live in today. I can see in my mind's eye the room it was written in. Thank heavens, the green shag carpet is now gone, but I imagine I was sitting on it as I wrote, in my teenage handwriting:

Dear Dorothy,

I wonder if you will feel funny at reading this. (Yes.) I find it strange to think of this sheet as all yellowed and fragile torn from my prized Harvard notebook--I used it to write plays in. (It wasn't--no air got to it. It is a little yellowed this morning, though. I wrote plays?)  

...

Our major difference that I know of is that you are looking backwards on these years and I'm looking forward. You know what I'm like for no doubt you've kept my diaries. (So true, but I haven't read them in entirety.) My biggest worry is tomorrow's Chem exam. Do you remember it? (No.) How interesting it would be if you could stretch out across the years and tell me what's (what was) on it. (If  I could, I would teach you a few memory tricks, you young baggage.)

You know me, but I don't know you. Are you married? (Now, yes.) Do you even have children? (Alas, no.) From where I sit, I can scarcely imagine it. Perhaps you are a nun? ...Dominican, perhaps?  Do you have an exciting Career? (I suspect that capital 'C' is ironic.) Are you still writing? (Yes.) Have you been published (say yes!)?  (Yes.) Have you written any hit plays? (No.) How many years did you spend in university? (Too many.) I have a lot of questions, but, as much as I hate to, I have to get back to chemistry. (Highlighting and rereading your notes will not work. Make flashcards.)

I hope you don't mind being [my age in 2001]. Every age has its ups and downs. [You have no real way of knowing this, but I admit it is true. Being a teenager was no picnic.] I also hope you haven't seen or experienced many sad or terrible things in your life. [Shudder. But not many. Apart from personal disasters, 9-11 does come to mind. And the mid-term relatio of the Extraordinary Synod on the Family.]  I especially hope [parents and siblings, by name] are all well and happy. [Yes, thank God, all well.] I wonder if Grandma [Gladys] is still up and about! [In 2001, yes.]

I hope you kept track (and keep track) of who married who! (Whom. And who divorced whom, too.)

Oh well, I'm going now. Have a very happy birthday.

Sincerely,

Dorothy at Eighteen.

P.S. I hope you've kept up the old moral standards.  [What a thing to say to an older woman.] Pax vobiscum!  

Included with this spritely missive were a card from a bunch of flowers given to me by my then-boss at the cafe I worked in,  a poem from my then-best friend, and a computer-generated illustration of Pavel Chekov from "Star Trek" from my brother Nulli. It had formed part of an 18th birthday card. Oh, and a program from a play I adapted from Little Women for the school Christmas assembly.

It strikes me that no man alive would write himself a letter to be read over a decade later, and I'm a bit embarrassed admitting to such a stereotypically female behaviour.

But, although I had a little trouble sleeping last night, I don't regret it. What I liked best were the tiny material fragments of my life, especially Nulli's 1980s computer drawing.