A Letter To My Younger Self

Dear Natasha,

You’re seventeen.

You’re sitting in the library or the computer suites at school, not really thinking that much about the future. Speculating about what might be is a waste of time. You could try a hundred times to predict everything that might happen to you and how you will react to it. But there will always be something that you could never anticipate. A change, a twist in the road, that throws everything you planned off course. So why plan ahead? Instead you think it better to become adaptable - to be able to work around these changes and twists in the road, and alter the course depending on what happens now rather than something that may or may not happen in some undetermined future.

Sometimes you wonder if this is a sensible way to look at life. Let me assure you, that this is sound reasoning, my dear. Because boy, has the future got some twists planned for you.

You do feel a little adrift sometimes. Everyone wants to know what you intend to do with your life. That’s okay. You still don’t know now. You will learn pretty quickly that any skills you think you have are not one of a kind. Life is competitive, and any gifts you think you may have right now in photography or film making quickly become far less special than they have. It’s good that you learn this now though - these days, technology has progressed so far, that any idiot with a camera phone can create stunning works of art. The industry that you thought you might make your home in, is under the stiffest competition imaginable, coming from every other person on the planet. That’s not somewhere that you want to be.

You do have one gift that is still special though. You’ve been doing it your whole life, but only recently have you started to take it seriously. Because it makes you feel so alive inside. You slip inside it, away from that horrible mess out there, and make everything happen the way you want it. It’s not at all surprising. It’s just you. You scribble it in the back of notebooks. You write it on scraps of paper at work, which you pocket nervously. You blow off your study hour to hunch over the keyboard and pound words out of it in a fevered rush. And sometimes you wonder if you’re being crazy - surely nothing can come of this?

Well it can. It hasn’t quite yet, but ten years from now, it’s getting close. Tantalisingly close. And the only reason it’s got so tantalisingly close, is because you are good at it. Really good. A lot of it hasn’t changed. You’re still scribbling in the back of notebooks - that one notebook has multiplied into a harem of fucking notebooks, with post it notes, receipts and street maps tucked between each page. You still jot down lines and ideas on scrap pieces of paper at work, which you then pocket nervously and squeeze throughout the day. You always blow off your lunch hour to edit and reread scenes on your phone. And you are still crazy. The only difference is that the quality of all of these things has increased beyond anything you could have imagined.

It is unseemly to toot one’s own horn, but you are good. You are very very good.

Oh stop hiding your face, dear one. You have to learn to take a compliment. It irritates people when you do that.

I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be so harsh. You can’t help it. I suppose this is where I move on to the bad news from further down the road - specifically this one geological fault that keeps opening up cracks in the tarmac as you drive over them.

You have a demon inside your mind. You haven’t been formally introduced to it yet, but it’s there. It’s that little voice that whispers in your ear every day, telling you that you are worthless. You are nothing. Nobody cares about you. You have no ability, no virtues, no power, no reason to be alive and taking up valuable space on this planet, that could go to someone more deserving.

It tells you not to try, because there is no way that you will ever succeed. It tells you to just give up, because nobody will care even if you do manage it. It tells you that everyone else thinks it too. They whisper about it behind your back. It’s gently nudged you more than once to consider how much simpler it would be if you just went for a little walk around the cliffs and never came back.

I’m sorry, hun. It hasn’t gone away. And it never will completely. Three times now, it’s burrowed so deep inside your mind that it’s taken months to pull it out again. The last time was the worst - it clawed right down to the bottom, until there was nothing left - but you did come out of it eventually. You have a tattoo now to mark that - and to have something comforting watch your back.

Over time, with help from therapists and support programmes, you will learn to loosen the grip of those claws. Sometimes you manage to have entire days where you don’t remember it’s there. Those are the best days. But part of this is learning to accept that there will be days when the grip is tight, and the claws will be trying to scratch away inside your mind again. Those days will always be around. Like I said, it will never go away completely.

And you must remember this, sweet girl. Whatever that demon tells you. However much of a failure you feel each time it comes back. However much you want to believe all the things it tells you.

It’s not your fault.

You didn’t ask for this illness (and it is an illness). You are not attention seeking. You are not giving up. You did nothing to get this demon. It’s been growing there all your life. All you can do is be ready to build bridges when those cracks start to appear.

As I said before, planning ahead doesn’t really work with you. And it never will, really. Plans will always have to change when the demon shows its face.

It’s a good thing you have very understanding friends.

Yes. Friends.

You’ve gained loads.

It’s probably your most important achievement in the last ten years.

I know right now, at seventeen, there’s still a little girl inside you, who so desperately wants to be popular. Don’t worry. I know it seems impossible right now, but when you go to university, that little girl, and what she wants, stops being important. Instead you realise that it’s quality over quantity. I know, it sounds so cliche. But it really is. You have wonderful friends. Friends who draw out an ease - a lightness - in you. Friends who accept your shortcomings, and do their best to fill in your gaps. Friends who, quite frankly, are a few cards short of a full deck. But that’s great. There’s nothing more reassuring than knowing that the rest of the world is just as mad as you.

You’ve also lost some. Some more important than others. Each time it hurts. You already know how much it hurts. It will keep hurting, over and over and over again, just like it did that first time. But you can live through it. You know you can.

You’ve lost others too, in other ways. And I’m sorry, but one is going to hurt you more than the rest. I wish I could say it was peaceful. But the truth is, it wasn’t. It can’t have been. It went on for so long. I think - I know - that the only relief she had was at the end. You put on a brave face - try to be practical and not get in the way when it happens. But don’t forget to take time for yourself? Please? You need it.

She’s gone too. Both of them are. The last of that generation. You cried less over the second one. I don’t know if that was because you loved her differently, or because the first one hurts more? There’s no sense in asking these questions, really. They’re impossible.

I suppose I should mention the rest of them too, huh? They are okay - still the same as ever. I suppose once you get to a certain age, you don’t really change much anymore. Sometimes that will frustrate you. Sometimes you’ll just learn to let it go. You’re still learning in that regard.

The other one, though? He has changed. You don’t like some of the changes. Not the casual misogyny, or the way he says or does things because he thinks they’re cool. But you have to admit - some of the things he’s done? They are cool. You are never going to be best friends - I think you’ve realised that by now - but secretly, you are proud of him, in a way. He is not the best version of himself by any means, but he is a better version of himself. So that’s progress, I suppose.

Though if he keeps calling every woman he meets ‘darling’ or ‘love’, he’s going to get slapped sooner or later, and part of me really hopes that I’m there to see it.

Yeah, you never lose that sense of schadenfreude. Keep it. You’ll need it. Especially when you get onto the internet.

Yes. The internet. You’re pretty popular in certain circles now - well alright, one particular circle. And I don’t mind telling you that it feels bloody great. You’ve invented a circle of your own too. Those mad people that I mentioned earlier? You’ve met a large number of them here. I could talk for ages about them, but I think there’s one in particular who needs mentioning. He’s special.

Yes. He. I see you lean forwards in your seat. Surely not! You don’t trust men.

You trust him. Actually, there are a few of them that you trust now. But like I said, he’s special. He was always going to be special, to stick out five years with you and not want to run away. And of course you were going to meet him on the internet. Where else does someone like you have a chance to make a good first impression? He writes, just like you. That’s more than you could have ever hoped - that someone would not only tolerate your weirdness, but would actively encourage it and participate in it too (he ships Harry/Hermione, but we can forgive him for this).

He’s nothing like the men you invent for your stories. You could never have invented someone like him in a million years. That’s a good thing. Creating someone means you don’t get the same sense of wonder when you explore them. That’s an adventure in itself. And since he handed you a ring a week ago, it seems you will be able to explore this one for a long time yet.

So many special things are coming up for you in the next ten years. A broader knowledge of writing. Eating vegetables. Flying long distance on your own. The discovery of your breasts (yes, they do exist!). Attending conventions, and discovering just how many nerds there really are out there. Learning to dance. If all these occurred in the last ten years, I can only speculate what the next ten years will hold.

I think that you will perform a solo dance.

I predict that you will visit Japan.

I hope there will be marriage and maybe at least one child.

I know that you will get published.

I was never searching for these goals. They just came to me on the road. So you see? You are right. You can’t anticipate the twists that your journey will take. So don’t worry, sweet nerd, about trying to map where you’re going. You’ll find over the next ten years, that the map tends to draw itself.

Or, since it’s us, the story tends to write itself.

They do that, doncha know?

All my love to long ago,

Your twenty seven year old self.

P.S. You’re spelling definitely wrong in your fanfictions. Stop it. It’s embarrassing.

P.P.S. It’s funny that I have used a driving metaphor for this letter, when in ten years you still haven’t passed your driving test!