Dear 2009 Self, Here is Your Flashforward

On this day in 2009, I wrote this post.

I feel so down right now.
Like I dove to the deepest part of the deepest ocean, dug a hole in the sand and buried myself in it.
That low.

Then the very next day, I wrote this post.

Remember where I was yesterday? Dig about six feet deeper and that’s approximately where I am right now.
I have a right to feel down.

I know, I can be overly dramatic sometimes. Okay, maybe a lot of times.

But that time, I really did have a right to feel down. I was depressed from being jobless and broke in Singapore, where if I couldn’t find a job soon, I would have to leave.

It was around that time when I discovered the TV show and the book called Flashforward, a story in which everyone simultaneously lost consciousness and got a glimpse of what their lives would be like years into the future.

I really wished I could get the same glimpse and know that my life would turn out to be fine.

Well, 2009 self, here’s your flashforward.

🚀🚀🚀

Dear 2009 Self,

First of all, it’s not true that you don’t have friends who want to help you. You do.

A few hours from now, one of them will reach out and ask you if you need help. A lot more are willing to help you, too, if only you would ask. This is not their fault, but yours. Swallow your pride and ask for help. It won’t kill you, I promise.

Another one of your friends will be such a big help a couple of months later, when she gets you a job. It won’t be your ideal job, but it will get you through, and you will end up experiencing a lot of interesting things, the kind that your storyteller self loves to collect.

A few months after that, yet another friend will tell you that they are hiring in their office, and you will send her your CV and end up working in that office for over 5 years and who knows how much longer, because I’m still working there until now.

It won’t be an easy ride. That previous job I mentioned, and your first role in my current office, well, they will have difficulties, and by that I mean you will encounter difficult people, the kind who will scream at you and make you hide in toilet cubicles to secretly cry.

Sorry if I’m making you even more depressed. But my point, really, is to say that you do end up surviving those people and surpassing those moments. (And also writing a great short story inspired by the experience.)

You will eventually end up in a role that you never expected, something that you won’t ask for specifically but will be exactly what you were looking for.

A happy coincidence. Serendipity. 

It will take a few years to get there, but you will get there.

So don’t give up, okay?

Wipe those tears away and start enjoying the fact that you don’t have to work during your favourite holidays. You have a lot to be thankful for, you just don’t see it yet.

Xoxo,
Your 2015 self