Dear fly, a letter to my younger self

Dear fly (2011)

How is it hanging in 2011? It is sci-fi kind of weird that I am writing a letter to myself, to my younger self. Two years ago, this very same month we sat at this table writing up a proposal to local newspapers to get the column published on a weekly basis and also making a two year plan of where we wanted us to end up. Fast forward and two years later we are at the same spot on the board game called life, the fuckery is stupendous I tell you.

Had you told me that we would end up jobless fresh from graduating from the 5^th best school in France, the equivalent of attending the top ten best Ivy League schools in the United States. I would have called you a liar, but here we are. Jobless just as we were two years ago, either we committed career suicide or we made the wrong decision coming back home. Maybe we should have stayed in Lorraine and settled down with a French girl. While we are wondering the wilderness of nomadic job hoping, our friends are buying houses, cars and making families. Dude! Life is passing us by, it’s a sad state of affairs.

I apologize, I am sorry. I think I miscalculated, I think I fucked up. Our life is still packed in a suitcase, the word permanent does not exist to us. All our worthily possessions can be packed in a box in under half an hour, that is how sad the situation is. Eventually situations like these wear a person down psychologically, you start feeling dumber by the day (you literally feel the brain cells die one by one). My greatest fear is that this will go on for so long that by the time we actually land the job we want, there will be nothing left, I will be a shadow of my past. I will be a shadow that pales in comparison to you, a shadow that will desecrate and undo the hard work that you put in to get us here. My greatest fear is that all the insomnia driven sleepless nights, long days in the lab and even longer days putting everything together while trying to keep the pressure from pushing us over will be worth nothing. That all the sacrifice was in vain, that shit really scares me and avoiding it is my number one mission, we aren’t about that wasted potential life. We were born for greater things.

I crave for the same thing that you craved two years ago, the permanency of routine. The capability to at least have an idea of what life would be like a month from now, as it stands I don’t even know what our life we be like next week. It used to depress me, but I stopped giving a damn. I realized that I was risking our mental health by overthinking and panicking about our situation, I stopped worrying a long time ago. In the mind of Filemon Fly, there are no fucks to be given, if life won’t take us seriously then why should we take it seriously. Life has not been kind enough to give us any lemons, so we owe it (Life) no explanation as to where and how we made the juice we are drinking. Sure, we are going to get criticized for not taking this thing called life seriously, laughing when we are supposed to be all uptight and blank faced. But my mission in life is not for us to end up in a mental asylum and that’s what would happen if we took this shit too seriously. So to sum it up, in the mind of Filemon Fly, there are no fucks to be given.

Don’t be too worried about the assumption that everyone makes when they read our writing, that we will forever be haunted by the ghost of the girl with the brown eyes. These people have not seen us at our worst, they don’t tag along with us to therapy. So as I said earlier, there are no fucks to be given. We both know the only girl we have eyes for is complicated, she is even is more complicated than her current relationship situation. That is life, but I apologize again, coz I have made a bit of a mess but I am sure you won’t hold it against me. The important thing is that we have survived, we are still standing. Unemployment, departed siblings, depression, self-destructive thoughts of cutting our hair and quitting writing, have all come and gone. But we have survived, we still stand on our own two feet. It does not matter that there is nothing to celebrate. We survived and that in itself is worth celebrating. So raise your whiskey double and Salut! We can later blame this little ranting tirade on alcohol.

I know you are disappointed because I haven’t achieved any goals from our two year plan that we drew up in October 2011, we still don’t have a pension. The longest we have held a job is ten months and Insomnia still gives us more attention than the girls do (okay, maybe I am over-exaggerating). We are no closer to finishing a novel, we sit with unfinished drafts that drive me crazy. I know the progress report does not make for good reading, but there are positives.

My driving has improved, compared to two years ago when we couldn’t even shift it into second gear properly, we are pretty much professionals now. Two years ago our CV was blank in the experience column but now there is just enough for us to be taken seriously, our Friday column was a dream but now it’s the funniest thing on Fridays since Trevor noah’s jokes about Caster Semenya. Two years ago, our mom was sending us pocket money, at least now we can take care of ourselves without having to worry. Aren’t you glad that we were listening when mom was going on about saving and investments. We might not be rolling around in a golf GTI (not that I'd by one anyways) but as long as we can afford to catch a cab, then we are fine. 

I hope this reaches you in its current state and that you don’t judge me on my failures. We have just fallen short, I haven’t given up and we will never stop trying.

PS: The future sucks! The past was so much simpler.

Sincerely yours

Fly (October 2013)