Dear Future Me: by Loren Haar

I asked if any of the members of this project would like to write a letter to their future selves. Here is Loren's powerful letter...

"Dear future me,

This is a brain fart disguised as a letter. Remember back in the day when you used to teach writing you used to ask the students to write whatever came to mind, without a filter—as fast as they possibly could…? Well, I’m taking my own advice and writing to you free-form, to see what comes out, from back here on Jan. 4th 2016 — just on the other side of 2015, that year that changed everything. (After talking to C. about how you did not want cancer to define your life or change the way you live, here you are, talking about how it changed everything. Hmmm…)

I’m 46 now, and my hair is only starting to grow back, my stupid eyebrows aren’t growing back at all! I’ve got neuropathy from the chemo, and my breast still hurts — after taking such a beating — but…. I’m happy. And I want you, future self, to remember that! I’ve been through the worst year of my life, no question, but I have something I didn’t have before. Fear of dying. I know it’s one of those things we always say, we know we are mortal, we are all gonna die, blah blah-blah blah blah, but really, until there was something growing inside me that could actually kill me, I’m not sure how much I took it to heart.

So — dear, dear future me, I want you to look back on this time and remember one thing only, this feeling. What it feels like to be afraid every single day of dying, BUT to go on living anyway. Be afraid, remember that feeling. But then take a breath and FEEL your life. Look around you and SEE it. The moments are more lovely. More bittersweet perhaps, but lovely all the same. Remember that play Our Town when the girl runs around as a ghost of sorts, telling her family to “just look at me, really see me, for once!”? Honor the moments and accept that we all have a limited time together. LOOK at your children and your husband and your father and your brothers. And that camera, it can help you do all this, but it can also hinder you from doing it — so please put the camera down and spend time together too. And if you are in a rut with your photography, stop trying to make your work a replica of what you see others doing. You have intuition — use it. Oh, and please, stop eating SUGAR!!"