Hello from 10 Years Ago

Subject: Hello from 10 Years Ago May 5, 2015 11:30am

To: sabrina.rocher97@gmail.com

From: rocher.sabrina15@friendsacademy.edu

Dear Future Me,

We’re supposed to write a letter to our future selves. Like, who do we imagine ourselves to be in ten years? I don’t know why we’re doing this in school, but I guess it’s a nice time capsule. It’s kind of exciting but also a little weird to think of who I might be in ten years, but I already have a plan and I’m sure you’ve executed on it. I know I’m planning, or I guess we’re planning, to go study for a PhD in molecular biology. How did that go? What advances are being made in epigenetics? Am I on track to winning a Nobel Prize in Biology? Did you know those are awarded by the Norwegian royal family? Maybe you could actually meet them. It would be nice to be a part of their world wouldn’t it? You could be a royal. I would like for our life to travel in that direction anyway. Princess Sabrina Maria Rocher has a nice ring to it. People always told me that my name sounds like an actress’ name. Why not let it sound royal?

Part of this exercise is to be honest with our future self about what we want. To be honest with you, I hope you travel around the world. I know I plan to study abroad in undergrad. After studying French for all of high school, it seems like a good pay off. I hope you get to keep practicing the language. I plan to continue studying it in college. I know PhDs frequently travel for conferences, so maybe you’re doing that? Or have you done that? Did you keep studying French? Did you move to France? I hope you did. I’m sure you did, that’s been the plan since Freshman year anyway. Nothing is better than free healthcare and education!! I wish we had that here. Maybe we will in the end. Ten years is a long time. I think people will wake up to the issues and see how great things could be. How great we could make things be! I’m kind of excited at the thought.

We’re supposed to write something encouraging as well, so I encourage you to keep going. Your future is quite bright and you’ve already beat the odds. I hope you keep going and flourish when you leave home. Life is meant to be enjoyed and I hope that’s what you’re doing.

Sincerely,

Sabrina Maria Rocher

Re: Hello from 10 Years Ago May 5, 2025 12:01pm

To: rocher.sabrina15@friendsacademy.edu

From: sabrina.rocher97@friendsacademy.edu

Dear Past Me,

What a delight it was to receive your email! Or, I suppose it’s our email isn’t it? I forgot we did this. I’m so glad I kept the same email all these years! Wow, reading this brought back so many memories of senior year, all of old friends, old teachers, even the smell of the computer lab we wrote this in. It is a nice time capsule isn’t it? Your youthful optimism makes me envious. We were so full of joy and promise weren’t we? This was before times got so tough. It’s complicated reading this. On the one hand, it makes me joyous to read how happy you were and how excited you were for the future. On the other, I’m reminded of how insecure you were. How insecure we both were. I wish I could forewarn you about how life breaks you down, but builds you up again. But then, you wouldn’t be living would you? I’m only 28 now, but in the life I’ve lived thus far, all I can say is that life is beauty and it’s pain. Sometimes the pain makes you appreciate the beauty more, but most of the time that’s just a platitude people say to console you in turmoil. Perhaps ten years from now I’ll have insight enough to earnestly spout those platitudes myself. Until then, I reminisce with fondness, jealousy, and hope in the wake of your adolescent optimism. I know I sound rather dour, but our life is quite nice in the end. Shall I tell you?

What a whirlwind of a ride you went on after graduation! What a life you have now. I wish I could hear your response to this crazy life we’ve lived. Imagine this: You did live in both London and Paris. Twice, actually. Once during a global pandemic. You’ll find out what that is soon enough. The stories from that alone! You even modeled for a bit… that would be quite fun to relive. We left science to pursue a career in the arts (much to our family’s chagrin), but we’re quite happy with the decision. We’re married to a very lovely man. The wedding actually just happened! I’m over the moon with how beautiful and mundane it all is. That’s another thing you’ll come to grips with in the first ten years of your adult life: love and all its forms. How boring love is, but how much passion lies therein when your favorite moments can be encapsulated in just holding a hand.

I must warn you, there will be a point where many of your conversations with friends will no longer pass the Bechdel Test. And that’s okay. But it is odd, no? We also make decisions now, with another person in mind, not just ourselves. We’ve come into our own enough to make decisions that are wise for our life and livelihood. Not just ones that follow the prescribed path or spite our parents. You do get to travel actually, to Scotland, Hungary, Ireland, South Korea, and more. Our wanderlust waxes and wanes over the years as we settle and unsettle. Would you believe me if I told you that travel becomes tiresome at one point, even though we love it? What a concept isn’t it? I have frequently thought about how I would explain my current life path to my past self, I always find myself wondering what she would think. What you would think. In many ways, we are the same. We are still a fangirl at our core. Still a lover of language, travel, books, and adventure. We’re just a bit more refined now, I dare say. More elegant, less insecure. You’re even able to sing in front of people now. Imagine that! You are right to be optimistic about the future. Things get much better after high school. Not directly, but after a while, they definitely do. But life does get hard, especially in ways that are beyond our control. It’s part of the roller coaster of life isn’t it? You have the ebb and flow of everyday, of many seasons. Each has beauty to take with you.

I must say, I’d forgotten how intrigued by royalty we were. Perhaps it started with our love of Disney and The Princess Diaries. That film ages quite well, I’d say. Anyway, as of right now, there have been no Nobel Prizes. We have yet to meet any royals. Besides, with what you learn in the next ten years, I think you’ll be disillusioned by politics and royalty anyway.

Wow, what a surprise this email is. I couldn’t stop smiling while reading these words from a prior self. Parts of you I’ve brought with me. Parts are frozen in resin that I can always revisit. But all of it is still us.

Thank you to my past self for all that you are and all that you were.

Love,

Sabrina Rocher-Delmont

Re: Hello from 10 Years Ago May 6, 2015 3:44pm

To: sabrina.rocher97@gmail.com

From: rocher.sabrina15@friendsacademy.edu

Dear Future Me?,

I’m confused. How did you even receive this? How are you writing to me from 2025? That doesn’t even feel like a real year.

What do you mean we left science? And we’re married? Why would we give up on our goals and empowerment? Wait, is the guy French? Or at least British? Is Delmont his last name? We get to live in France and the UK!?! Is it like Sherlock? How does the show end? Anyway, I need to focus, how could we leave science? This is our thing. Our Senior Superlative is in competition with Dan Salisbury for “Most Likely to Cure Cancer” in the yearbook. Everyone knows this is our thing. Our parents know it. Although, sometimes Dad asks me if I really want to be a scientist. Mother cried at my last essay, praising its craft, but Mother cries at everything. Science is our thing. You left it for art!?

…And it worked? What kind of art do you do? You’re successful I assume? Are you a famous writer? Or singer? Or actress? All three somehow? Did you get to meet John Green? Or Taylor Swift? Or Hayley Williams? I think it’s a little unfair that you know all the answers and I am just left with more questions. Were you even allowed to say half of what you said? We saw Back to the Future and Doctor Who! We know you’re not supposed to tamper with the past. Although, a part of me feels like this is a hack or a prank. I know there’s a Friends Academy Insults page. Maybe this is part of some final prank before we all go. If it is, it’s probably stupid to respond, but we’re leaving here for good in a month anyway, so what is there to lose in this one last inquiry? Whatever, if you’re pranking me, just leave me alone.

-Sabrina Maria Rocher

Re: Hello from 10 Years Ago May 7, 2025 6:01pm

To: rocher.sabrina15@friendsacademy.edu

From: sabrina.rocher97@gmail.com

Hi Past Me,

I am honestly just as confused as you are. I assure it is the real me. And the real you as well. Wow. You are correct about tampering with the past. It’s so tempting isn’t it? Well, maybe it’s not tempting to you yet. You still have quite a bit of life left to live. Even still, it is lovely to be able to speak with you this way. I wish I was there to give you a hug and tell you it will all be okay. But then again, you’ll find all of that out anyway.

Despite the risk, I’ll answer some of your questions, but I’ll keep it vague for the sanctity of the timeline. We focused on our writing over the years. More people praise your craft. Our husband is neither French, nor British. You’ll find out soon enough. I won’t spoil the surprise for you. It’s something you should experience in real time. Maybe we will meet some of our inspirations. Maybe we won’t. Some people will come to see us as inspirations. We are rather successful in our art, but your definition of success will change in time as you do. It’s okay to leave science behind. But in truth, you never leave it fully behind. It’s always there with you, like all of your past selves. Plus, if it makes you feel better, Dan Salisbury leaves science. I’m pretty sure he went into finance in the end. So none of us ended up curing cancer. You at least consistently followed your dreams. So far anyway. It is yet to be seen how 38 year old us fares.

You know, I’d forgotten all about the Friends Academy Insults page. I remember being really hurt by the idea of it. I suppose that’s as close to cyberbullying as we got. You’ll be ever grateful that we finished high school in 2015. You’ll see what social media turns into. I will say, we never found out if we were on the page or not. I will be honest and say that to this day I have a morbid curiosity to see if we were ever on it. But I think we’re better off not knowing.

I’d like to leave you with some more encouragement now that I know you will see this. Your life will be hard. After high school you will face family fallouts, estrangement, reconciliations, illness, transatlantic moves (prepare yourself for that last one, more work than you think). This will be unequivocally hard. But it will be so much easier than high school, and through it all you will find joy.

You will meet wonderful people. You will finally have friends and start living. You will travel the world, just like you wanted, only in ways you can’t even imagine right now. Your life and your world will be transformed. The exciting part is now you know this will be true. How fitting for planners like us?

I want to tell you more, and tell you all that is to come. But it is much better to experience it firsthand. I wish someone could have told me these things as a child. But I realize, even if someone did, it would have gone over my head as I’m sure it will go over yours. And that’s okay. It’s part of growing up.

Love,

Sabrina Rocher-Delmont

Re: Hello from 10 Years Ago May 8, 2015 1:44am

To: sabrina.rocher97@gmail.com

From: rocher.sabrina15@friendsacademy.edu

Dear Future Me,

Why did you hide everything in mystic woo-woo mumbo jumbo? It kind of feels like you’re being a little patronizing. Aren’t we supposed to be adults? I know I have “quite a bit of life left to live” as you said, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know things. I hope you don’t become one of those adults who forgets what it’s like to be a kid. Maybe that’s why we can email back and forth. You need to be reminded of your past self and honor me too. I’m not a child you know. I am an adult too.

I guess I’m just frustrated and confused by all of this. We’re artists in the end? Salisbury is a finance guy? What happens to everyone else? Did no one do what they said they would? I guess it doesn’t matter. Either way, I’ll find out like you said. I guess your encouragement helps.

Will we really have friends in the end? I asked around about the insults page. People said they either didn’t know or didn’t see. So I guess we’re not on it. Or I’m not on it. I think people are lying to make me feel better or I’m so insignificant here that no one could bother to feel something towards me one way or another. It doesn’t matter anyway. Graduation is in a few weeks. Then college and a whole new world! Anyway, thanks for bothering to respond.

It sounds like you’re happy. So I guess that means we’ll be happy.

Just, please don’t forget me.

Sincerely,

Sabrina Maria Rocher

Re: Hello from 10 Years Ago May 8, 2025 8:53am

To: rocher.sabrina15@friendsacademy.edu

From: sabrina.rocher97@gmail.com

Dear Sabrina Maria Rocher,

I will always always remember you. Don’t you forget to live.

Enjoy your life. There is joy in it.

I love you.

Fondly,

Sabrina Maria Rocher-Delmont

Re: Hello from 10 Years Ago May 8, 2015 12:03pm

To: sabrina.rocher97@gmail.com

From: rocher.sabrina15@friendsacademy.edu

I will do my best.

Will I get to keep talking to you?

Love,

Sabrina Maria Rocher

Re: Hello from 10 Years Ago-Message Delivery Failure May 8, 2015 12:04pm

To: rocher.sabrina15@friendsacademy.edu

From: mailer-daemon@googlemail.com

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