Legacy Letters

I’m trying to imagine what I would have written at age 15 in a letter to myself now – I’m finding it difficult to think back to what would have stood out to me as important.

Would I have given my older self any advice?

Where did I think I was headed in terms of a career? Post-secondary education? Travel?

What were the books I was reading at the time?

I think I’ve lost track of her a little bit.

That, of course, is what Bruce Farrer’s Gr. 10 English assignment aimed to avoid. By having his students write a 10 page letter to themselves 20 years in the future, the now-retired Bert Fox Community High School teacher hoped to reconnect his adult students with their adolescent frames of mind, emotions, fears and dreams.

There is a very philosophical element to this assignment.  I spent most of my time as a teenager in what seems like a long, continual daydream. Do we dream less as adults? I’m sure there are a lot of things we could have discovered if we had ten pages from a former self to analyze.

There is one thing that Mr. Farrer discovered – his commitment. He has become an inspiration for that commitment, having saved and stored more than 1500 letters from former students. Each year, he spends weeks searching for current addresses. Do I have a passion like that? I definitely want to foster one.

What will I say about that in 20 years, I wonder. Where will you be in 20 years from now? Let’s dream about that for a minute. I’m going to write those dreams down and keep them in a private place and in 2035, I’ll open and re-read them. Remember I said that – I’ll share them with you. ;)