If you could send an email to you in the future, what would you say?

Glasgow artist, Melissa Winning, asks that question as she reflects on using the website FutureMe.org, a platform that allows you to send emails to your own inbox in a desired amount of time.

She shares some highlights from the emails sent in her early adulthood, while typing out answers to the questions of the past.

I can’t remember where I first found out about FutureMe.org. My first email I sent through the website is now lost to time - my old Hotmail account having been infected with a virus that locked me out of it permanently. I do remember sending it in my first year of college in 2009, aged 17. I distinctly remember being really hopeful about the person who would read it - I imagined her so much more mature, being 18 and a fully-fledged adult. I imagined her having had a lot of grown-up sex and a cool job, maybe a cool flat in the big city of Glasgow, and definitely being well into the first year of studying at the Glasgow School of Art. I packed all those hopes into the email and cringed when I finally opened it a year later, embarrassed at my 17-year-old self, and also at my being very much not a GSA student. My rejections from the big Scottish art schools were still to come my way for the second year in a row, but at least I had moved out of the family home in Dunoon and did in fact have an older boyfriend (let’s not get into how inappropriately older right now). The tradition had begun and has yet to end. Every time I receive an email from my past self, I send a new one into the future. You are free to choose how long you are willing to wait for your message from the past - at my most impatient I’ve sent it to myself in 6 months’ time, but I have been known to send ones as far as 2 years into the future. Maybe one day I’ll choose the 5 year option or go really crazy and decide to contact myself a decade from now.

There is a fine line between nostalgia and navel gazing, I am unfortunately always teetering along it. Whenever I finish a journal, I read it back in full and sometimes fish out some previous ones because, after all, I am already on this journey through the past, so I may as well keep going. It's a mixed bag of emotions every time I read through the journals. This often entails: embarrassment at silly crushes that didn't pan out, sadness for friendships that fell to the wayside, anger at conflicts that I'd forgotten had once hurt me deeply, regret for my actions and, more commonly, my inactions. Maybe I'm coming down too hard on this act of looking back, it has taught me to recognise patterns in behaviour - both my own and from other people. More importantly, I've learned not to wait until years down the line to be empathetic towards my past self.

Since 2014, I’ve also tried to be nice to my future self. Having received a couple of emails where I realised that I hadn’t achieved what my past self had wanted me to, I decided to change tactics and just wish my future self a lot of love and patience instead. It’s been a gorgeous exercise in self-love that is now an effortless part of my life. In the past couple of years, I’ve wished I could reply to these time travelling emails. I’ve sometimes used it as a journal prompt, but as a die-hard lover of the time loop, I would love to actually defy physics and reassure my past self that she isn’t as big of a loser as she feels.

In lieu of actually breaking the space time continuum, I’ve decided to answer some questions past Melissa was dying to know the answers to:

Email from 2012:

Currently, you're having a dilemma, a dilemma concerning that bitchface McGee [REDACTED]. Maybe you're back to being BFFs in your time, but right now she is a persona non grata. Who knows, maybe you haven't seen her since that day in Yo! when you wore the black and white heart dress, with your dip dye hair and your lipstick and heavy black eyes. If you have seen her, it's probably been only once, right?

Anyway, the dilemma is this: should you delete/block her on Facey (Facebook) so you don't have to look at her horrible mug? Or would a fall out put your job at risk? Should you just look for a new job? A job with no connection to anyone, a fresh start, somewhere where no-one knows you and you can be yourself without someone else's opinion hanging over you?

Hey girlie. Well, I did in fact not see [REDACTED] too many times after that very descriptive meeting at Yo Sushi. It is so funny that you felt the need to mention the dip dyed hair but I know that was also a HUGE moment for you aesthetically, and unfortunately I am still a fan of adding highlights to the underside of my hair. The dilemma was all consuming to you in 2012, but we had as amicable a friend breakup one can have over text within the year between sending and receiving this email. I did get a new job, although that receptionist job remains one of my favourites I’ve had over the years. You don’t know how good you had it, kid.

Email from 2013:

What did you end up wearing for Debbie's wedding? That dress from Forever 21? Are you still working in H&M? Maybe we should get a new job, something that's more art related? Like a receptionist for a gallery or something. Who knows, this past year you might have met people who can help you with that.

HAVE YOU SOLD ANY ART?! Tell me you did please.

Ok so, I wore a horrible CREAM outfit to Cousin Debbie’s wedding, which I realise now is such a faux pas. I am so sorry that I stuck it out at H&M for so long because you obviously hated it so much. I tried really hard to do art related stuff, but I also got really disillusioned. But also, you were 21 like, sorry, but no potential arty employer was gonna take you seriously! You didn’t sell any art for several more years either. I am still unfortunately so lazy when it comes to that kind of thing, and I hate self-promo. Soz babe.

Excerpt from Email from 2014:

How many people did you shag in 2014?

Straight to the point, okay! There were three people, but one of them was an actual boyfriend. It’s nice that I was always a “Top Shagger” through and through.

Email from 2015:

I love you. I hope you have done lots of cool new things that you've always wanted to do. I hope you got another tattoo. I hope you are maybe planning a trip to Iceland. I hope you maybe took a class or have thought about going back to college some more. I love you and if you did none of those I don’t care as long as you are looking after yourself and you still love yourself and your body. I hope you're still reading a lot. It genuinely feels amazing to be reading so much again - especially two books at the one time. It makes me feel young and curious and smart again.

Hi babe, I still haven’t been to Iceland, but I’m pretty covered in tattoos now and they’re a regular occurrence in life which is cool. I did like 3 more years of college and 2 years at uni because I’m addicted to education and if I could rinse the system anymore, I’d never stop tbh. I read a lot last year, almost 60 books in fact, but this year reading has taken a back burner and I’ll be lucky to have read more than 20 by the end of the year. But I also have a lot less free time and maybe I’ll have an intense book year again in the future. It’s not a big deal.

Email from 2016:

Will I regret finally doing something about this feeling?

Is it me? Is it him? Or is it just us?

Am I only staying because I feel like I should? Am I a bad person for staying? Am I a bad person for sometimes not wanting to?

Wow this one is rough. You were mostly staying out of guilt and I wish you’d broken up with him earlier. You are not a bad person for breaking up with someone. You were deeply unhappy, not because of him specifically but because being with him brought out a lot of sadness that you didn’t realise was lurking under the surface. You were also literally just 24 and would have been going through it whether you were with someone or not. Ultimately it was a good decision even if the guilt lingered for a couple of years. It all worked out fine x

Email from 2017:
Anyway I’m on my period how fucked up is that?! Hopefully you’re not on yours today.

That is fucked up, mine is due in a week ☹

To end this weird little time travelling exercise, I will include my favourite parting paragraph from an email I sent myself in one of the most cursed years in existence, 2020:

I love you so much. I can see you in the distance, fuzzy, blurred at the edges. You are still soft, and kind, and funny, and loving, and loved. Your hair looks so different! But it suits you! And you smell amazing omg, what perfume is that?

About Melissa

She/her

Melissa Winning is a mixed-media artist and pop culture enthusiast based in Glasgow.

Instagram: @littlequeenhoneybee