Last week while sitting in a local Portuguese cafe, the day after I went skydiving for the first time, I randomly decided to log into my old high school email and see what was still on there. After a few minutes of scrolling through my drive, I found a peculiar looking document titled “Dear Future Me” from May 26th, 2016. I took a deep breath and started reading. This is how it opened:
“Hi Future Me,
First of all, I hope you are reading this from another country. I hope you are impacting the world in a positive way and ensuring people treat our planet with care. Although I still have no clue what I want to do with my life, I think my calling is to contribute something to our society that will help make our world a better place.” Chills immediately started forming on my skin. Hearing my eighteen year old self validate why I’m still traveling makes all the dark sides of full-time travel all worth it. I kept reading.
“There are so many things that I keep adding to my bucket list. I wonder if you go back to it and are able to check off the majority of the items. That would be awesome. Some of the big ones that I want to accomplish the most are: skydiving, traveling to every continent, and facing my biggest fear: scuba diving. I will never understand why I have such a big fear of the ocean and what lives underneath it.”
I’m gonna be honest, this one got me. I was sitting in this local cafe and immediately started crying after reading this paragraph. Reading this the DAY after skydiving… this can’t just be a coincidence. And scuba diving. I faced my fear a year ago by scuba diving, and now I’m going to get certified.
“And most of all, I hope you are still extremely close with the family. When we all got to a respectable age, Trevor and Gavin became my best friends. I hope they are still yours.” Yes. Yes they are :-).
I am overwhelmed with emotions after reading the rest of my letter. Sometimes I forget just how far I’ve come on my journey, and I am so happy I can make eighteen year old Peyton proud. She would be looking at me in awe: all the fears, anxiety, doubts and lack of confidence she was feeling while graduating high school led her to where I am right now. In Portugal, living my eighteen year old dream life, choosing my happiness over others’.
Wherever you are in life right now, I encourage you to think about who and what you want to be in five years. Maybe write it all down, and open it five years later. You might thank yourself.
PG
Where It Begins 