Meet Me in the Future

My workmate just got an invitation to join her daughter in the future. We had a nice laugh.

It was set up like a Google invite or one of those things you get through e-mail. The date was something like 2016.

On one hand it showed that the child has computer chops (just like her mama) and knows her way around a program, and is likely going to grow up to be a hacker. The really good hackers always get recruited to work for the government.

On the other hand in the present sense it was cute. Knowing the sender of such e-mail, she is precocious: Something’s always goin’ on. She goes through phases, but her main obsession is biology—specifically bugs and bones. These things hold whole worlds. They tell stories.

Yet the invitation held a whisp of melancholy. In 2016 she will be just turning teen—will she want Mom to join her in the future? Will that future occupy a space of stress, eyerolls, and monosyllabic replies (usually followed by more eyerolls)? Will she trade her childlike curiosity for what passes as young adult know-it-all?

None of us knows what the future may hold.

All I do know is that I’d love to join her or my daughter, join all my friends in the future. If only it was as easy as sending an invitation. We would plan to grab a coffee, meet up at the movies, launch our books, throw baby showers, save the date for weddings.

For now we can only click YES and hope.