Responding To A Letter From The Past

While digging through old blog posts a few moments ago, I came across a post I wrote in 2006, titled “A letter to my future self”. I thought I might share it, and add comments here and there… Hello Jonathan, Greetings from your past self. At the time of writing you were sat at a desk in the office of your then employer just outside of Marlow, whiling away lunchtime before a hectic week ahead. You had worked here for five years, and although you sometimes wondered if the grass was greener elsewhere, you did in fact quite like it. You still work there. “Grass is greener” thoughts have cropped up from time to time, and you have been headhunted, but you still like where you work.You have been married to W for a bit over five years, sharing her with Simpson “ the cat she owned before you met. You’ve been through quite a lot together so far, and are both apprehensive about adopting children. The review panel is due soon, and you wonder what the future holds. How many children did you adopt? What were there names? Where were they from? What is it like being a Dad? I don’t know where to begin. Everything hit fast forward as soon as you were approved to adopt. You are the proud father of three wonderful little girls. They came to you with nothing, and you have taught them about hard work, fun, and being silly. They adore you, and you them. They make you a better person every single day.How long did Simpson live? (knowing him, he’s still alive, and grumpier than ever) Simpson survived long enough to see children running around the big old house. He died one weekday afternoon after a sudden downturn in health. After several months he was replaced by three little buggers called George, Sam, and Tom. You love them all to bits, even if you do swear at them a bit too much.Do you still live in the same house? Did you ever get that safe removed from the chimney that the previous owners left when they moved out? How about the front door “ at what point did it fall completely to pieces? You still live in the same house, and you’re still just as annoyed with it. You’ve resigned yourself to not decorating it until the girls have grown up. The safe is still there. You did get the front door replaced, because it did indeed fall completely to pieces.How are your family? At the time of writing your nephew is 8 years old, and has just moved to Lincolnshire. Your brother is working in London still while looking for a job up there. Your parents are enjoying retirement in Cornwall, and your Dad has started writing a blog Your nephew is all grown up now! Your brother sorted his life out too, and moved north to be with his family. Dad still writes in his blog from time to time (usually about woodworking stuff), and your Mum has joined Facebook. She has her own laptop. Yes, you read that right.How did your cousin from San Francisco get on? Did she move to England in the end? Did she marry that rugby player? She married the rugby player from London, and he moved to San Francisco to be with her. We’ve been wondering if they might all move back to England eventually, but nobody talks about it.Does Microsoft still have a monopoly? Windows Vista has just been released, and everybody is horrified by it’s hardware requirements. 2 gig of ram is a lot right now. Microsoft’s monopoly is ebbing away. Google have become the new Microsoft, just as Microsoft became IBM. 8 gig of ram is not frowned at any more. Tablet computers have finally arrived, as have phones that are as powerful as the computers of your time.You cycle to work every day at the moment, and it keeps you fairly fit “ do you still do that ? Yes. You started running too - not very frequently, and you suffer from pronation in your feet, but you still run. Who would have thought?Are you still in touch with the same friends? The singer songwriter in Oklahoma, the glass artist in Oregon, or the girl from Cornwall you visited last Christmas? The girl in Cornwall has become your closest real world friend. You try to spend time together whenever you visit, and you keep in touch almost every week. Sometimes life gets in the way, but you do your best. You are still in touch with everybody else too - but life has cut back the chance to cultivate many of the friendships you once had.Do you still write a blog? Have you written that novel yet “ the one about the fictional world that only continues to exist if children believe in it? This post would seem to answer that. You still haven’t written a novel, and no - you haven’t written THAT novel either.Your work lunchtime is about to come to an end, so it’s perhaps time to draw this to a close. In 2006 you were happy. You were married to a wonderful lady who you adore, you live in a big old house that you secretly love, you do a job that others aspire to, and you have more friends than at any time in your life so far. Here’s hoping this message finds you well, and that you know the answers to all the questions contained