A letter to my future self: ‘I hope you’re in your era of clarity’

Writer and broadcaster Pandora Sykes is hoping that in 10 years’ time, the fog of permanent exhaustion will have lifted, and that she’ll be enjoying new pockets of time and peace. Hey. Hi. Hello! I love writing letters to people I care about and so I thought I’d give this “writing to myself” thing a go. That said, it’s strange to be writing to a future me. Partly because I can’t picture you – how the years might have softened or hardened you – and partly because I have a mixed relationship with “the future”. I have to couch it in quotation marks so it seems sillier, softer. It can feel quite daunting, I think: that wide open path where terrible and joyful things can bloom. But I’m also quite excited for it. My 30s so far have been a decade of chaos, of three young children, of learning to be a mother (a lesson that never ends), of growing and burning out, and growing and burning out ….

I hope that a decade from now, you are in your era of clarity. A time to know yourself a little better, a time to reflect a little more. For learning the piano again. For relearning Spanish! Perhaps you are still flying by the seat of your pants – never leaving enough time for anything, always racing out the door with one shoe on – but I’m hopeful you’re a little less of a bone-tired husk.

For me to truly picture where you are, Pandora of 10 years’ time, I need to look back at the last decade, which has felt like both an undoing of confidence and a whittling of a new type. Guileless and unhesitating in my 20s, I am warier and a little less decisive in my 30s. But while I envy the conviction I had in my youth, I am grateful for the groundedness that comes with age: an awareness of what’s worth going to bat for, and when it’s best to lay something to rest. Of who I am in the wider picture of it all. To quote Nicole Kidman in Babygirl: “We are all irrelevant.” What a relief, that is. To be a microscopic speck of energy in the universe.

I didn’t have much of a skincare regime in my 20s. I was careless, really, with my skin. I didn’t cleanse or tone or moisturise and I definitely didn’t wear enough suncream. God bless the millennial teenage girl and her penchant for Hawaiian Tropic. Are you, Pandora of 47, cursing Pandora of 27, who had such a relaxed attitude to sun safety?.

The past few years have taught me how soothing and ritualistic (how adult) it is to look after my skin. There’s something about being permanently exhausted, I think, that makes you want to treat your skin with care. I wonder if you have persisted in this – I wonder if you are now religious about your regime, methodically smoothing the Clarins Extra-Firming Day cream all over your face, treating yourself to a mini massage. I imagine you’re more aware of your changing skin than I am now, when I never stand still for long enough to truly consider my face.

At the time of writing, I am wary of making resolutions – I always seem to fall short, which makes me feel guilty – but I’m hopeful that you have learned to pause. To let things percolate, change shape, breathe. Perhaps you are now teaching your teenage children that, too. (To imagine them as teenagers – stop! Pause time. Pause it right damn now!).

Confidence is a funny thing. It can be hard to feel confident as a working mother, when you’re octopussing with all these imaginary arms, regularly feeling like you’re failing at both roles. I’m learning to trust my instincts; to follow my gut when it comes to my work, and with my children. I bet you have a better grasp of that now. I hope you’re still reading (but not too much – I read compulsively when I’m overwhelmed) because it is through reading, through the limitless imagination of a narrative, that you feel confident. It is a form of expansion – it allows you to imagine what is possible.

I hope that you have found projects to immerse yourself in, that allow you to disappear into libraries for months at a time, to even put on an out-of-office for an entire season. I’ll be back online in January. Bliss. Above all, I hope you are still motivated by curiosity and kindness. I hope you are kind to your skin, too, and remain curious rather than censorious about what you might look like at 57, 67, and, here’s hoping, 77 and beyond. Curiosity allows for serendipity. And serendipity, in an increasingly controlled world, feels like the greatest gift of all.

With love,. Pandora x. PS: The advice I’m giving my future self which might just help you too:. 1 Carve out time for rituals that make you feel good. Lie in the bath at least once a week, and don’t just lie, submerge, hair floating like seaweed. 2 Learn the art of the pause. Think before you say “yes” and don’t feel pressed to give instant responses – whether that’s in work or play.