I couldn’t be my 21-year-old self
By: Christopher Francis
Tags: Coming Of Age, Time Travel, Comedy, Humor, Self Discovery

(Pictured: Me at 21 and Me at 30)

It was early in the morning at a McDonalds getting breakfast when I got an email from my 21-year-old self. Present day, I’m 30, but on the last day of living in my university flat, I apparently sent myself an email to the future.

I had used a service called futureme.org. It’s a website I used June 16th 2012 that I clearly had forgotten about ever since. It’s a cool service, though. You’d assume some experiments like that would fizzle over time due to lack of funding or interest or otherwise.

Lo and behold, however, I’m looking at the words written to my future self 9 years ago. Reading them, I will tell you this: I could not be my 21-year-old self.

Time is not kind, but time can also put things into perspective. For one thing, I was way too optimistic about where I would be in the future. There’s just something about romantic about artistic and creative pursuits, but as me at 21 would think…I should be the next Stephen King by now. Or Quentin Tarantino. Or…J.K. Rowling, I dunno. At least I can say I will never be J.K. Rowling. For that, I am thankful. Don’t worry, 21-year-old self. You’ll find out.

Pouring over the words of a naive mentally ill soon-to-be graduate, it’s crazy to think I had such resolve and such an idealised timeline for events in my life. My lofty 9 years from the point of writing that email seemed to be mapped out in a perfect path that would have me moving out of my parents’ house, travelling to America, and getting the job of my dreams in the media industry.

It’s almost as if I thought that as soon as I graduated there would be no issues achieveing everything. No barrier of entry. No financial struggle. No major tectonic shifts in media. No looming pandemic stopping you going to the shops let alone fly to California.

The goals mapped out in this email from the past weren’t unrealistic, per se — I at least managed to move out of my parent’s house after saving up enough money away from wreckless retail therapy — but reflecting on it makes me consider that our lives shift and evolve constantly. We’ll still have the pipe-dreams, but you see the other angles of life. Financial and professional success is admirable, but on reflection I see that I didn’t ponder much of the rest of life.

Having reached the quarter-life crisis of life (Yes, I’m totally going to live until 120) I have been coming to the terms that time really is just an arbitrary concept and it is ourselves that create these arbitrary barriers of entry. These cut-off dates. There’s no rush to do anything in life except be in a list for the Top 30 Under 30. And even then, that’s just a publication trying to latch onto relevancy while we ourselves try to be successful.

Ultimately, however, I could not be my 21-year-old self again because in hindsight and frankly…I was a fucking idiot. Not for writing optimistically to my 30-year-old self, but for the want to grow up fast and trying to bluff my way through life.

The secret to surviving your first few decades of life is to ride the wave and realise that you don’t know shit. You barely know yourself let alone other people, and at your best, you’re probably going to reboot your lifestyle as many times as Spider-Man movie series. Which is great! You’ll be nostalgic for your first significant chunk of life, you’ll cringe at your adolescent reboot, and it isn’t until you find yourself opposite Captain America in the MCU when you realise “Ohhhhhh…I know who I am now.”

21-year-old me was optimistic. It took time for me to become the me I want to be. The one played by Tom Holland. He can do his own backflips. I needed to learn how to treat myself and treat other people first. Learn the rules of the road. Not presume that things would be easy because I got a Bachelor of the Arts in Media.

The version of myself in the past was very lofty, but I’m glad to be down to earth now. While I’m here, let me posit something to my 40-year-old self.

Oh, hey. 30-year-old you here. Did you travel to Mars yet? I hope you managed to make it big on Vine 3. Have you moved into a loft above a cool bar in Manhattan that you co-own with Ryan Reynolds? He’s been doing such crazy projects now, let alone what bullshit he could be doing 10 years from now.

Don’t sweat the future, people. It’s the emails you get from your past self while you’re deciding what type of McMuffin you want for breakfast that truly get you existential.