100 Storiesarticles
100 Stories / Dear Me, a series of letters.
20.9.16
100 Stories // * Some open letters.
Dear Michelle of the past, present and future,
I want to write this open letter so that you can remember a time when you felt settled, content and ecstatically happy for almost the very first time in your formidable twenties.
2016 has been a bloody rollercoaster of a year so far and I really want you to savour this time. No obligations, no rent to pay, no mortgage weighing you down, a booming freelance business that goes from strength to strength everyday, even though you don’t notice until that godforsaken weekly ‘admin’ day.
You’ve already - thank God - realised that there’s way more to life than fretting about all of the above and sometimes, if not all the time, others will make you feel like a complete fraud: no well-known company to ‘brag’ about being a tiny cog in, no house to proudly show off, no set-in-stone plans. Just being you. Some days you work from 7am-11pm and other days you pack a bag full of goodies and run wild with your puppy until the sun sets. And do you know who’ll make you feel like you’re on top of the world and not a fraud? Your friends, your family and your boyfriend.
The 4th February 2016 tested you beyond your wildest dreams. Losing the light of your life whilst thousands of miles away will break you and leave you broken until you’re home with your loved ones. It’s always hardest to realize that the best things are those tiniest joys that you never really notice until it’s too late. Oddly-timed phone calls making sure you’ve had your dinner at 4am, homemade packages of food snuck into your suitcase when heading back to University, Wednesday evenings of tea and cake and musing about life, a fond fancy for cheesy biscuits and j20 drinks and M&S yum-yums that make the corners of your lips smile when you spy them on the weekly food shop.
Dear Michelle,
Modern-day millennial life really suits you, even though you hate that word. All that nonsense about becoming an adult and fulfilling all of those dreams you had at the tender age of five rush further and further away and you really like it that way. Why shouldn’t you wake up and just be whoever you want to be that day? A writer, a friend, a sister, a reader, an advice-giver-outer, a nap extraordinaire, the three-year mayor of your Animal Crossing village. You don’t have to be a cookie cutter twenty-something young professional, whatever that is. Chase everyday dreams - 99p cookies! - chase lifelong dreams, chase your bus ticket flying down the street.
Why does it matter so much how we’re perceived?
I mean, 99.9% of it is absolute bullshit anyway. We’re all so busy and self-involved that we’re over-obsessive about perfecting our social media personas, because, let’s face it, that’s the only way we meet others nowadays.
Dear Michelle,
It’s 1st April 2016 and you’re finally, finally going to get your chance with a guy you ‘had a crush on’ in 2009. I’m being serious. Mountains (Mount Fuji, in particular) and seas moved and somehow you got the guy. And day by day, you’re going to realize just why 2015 *had* to be so awful. It’s so worth it. ♥
Being business-minded is finally going your way and you kinda just ignore the naysayers that say it’s boring to be business-minded. Well, you don’t plan on working another single day for somebody else and it’s looking like you won’t have to. After 25 years of terrible luck, it seems like the stars are aligning and everything just fits. That’s kinda cheesy but all the best things are.
With love,
M
