The Question of Knowing Our Future and The Future of Us
It’s pretty safe to say that at some point in our life, we would give our baby toes to glimpse into our future or hop into the DeLorean to change some instance in our past. Hell, Bestie Danielle and I usually play the “I should’ve” game once a season. So when I read the premise of THE FUTURE OF US by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler, it definitely made me go “hm.”
Blurb from Goodreads:
“It's 1996, and Josh and Emma have been neighbors their whole lives. They've been best friends almost as long - at least, up until last November, when Josh did something that changed everything. Things have been weird between them ever since, but when Josh's family gets a free AOL CD in the mail,his mom makes him bring it over so that Emma can install it on her new computer. When they sign on, they're automatically logged onto their Facebook pages. But Facebook hasn't been invented yet. And they're looking at themselves fifteen years in the future.
By refreshing their pages, they learn that making different decisions now will affect the outcome of their lives later. And as they grapple with the ups and downs of what their futures hold, they're forced to confront what they're doing right - and wrong - in the present.”
THE FUTURE OF US was decent. It didn’t have the wowing power I hoped for, but when you start to get paranoid about what you post on Facebook and Twitter just in case your high school self might stumble upon it, well…
1996. In case you’re math deficient, that’s 16 years ago. While reading this book, I couldn’t stop thinking about how much has changed in this amount of time: technology, air travel, life. It also got me thinking about what I would post if I had the chance for High School Alicia to see into the future. What the heck would High School Alicia think?
Let’s take a look.
Based off of my banner, it looks like I haven’t left my hometown—something that would make High School Alicia vomit—but it looks like I’ve traveled to Marakesh*. I’m married, which is somewhat of a shock, and I have way more friends than I ever thought possible. Based on my profile picture, I’m a cat owner, which is awesome. It also looks like I went to school to be a teacher. WHY THE HELL DID I DO THAT? I’m supposed to be a fashion designer!**
What would my Facebook statuses tell me? Surely this is where the meat of my future life would be.
Wow. Facebook statuses don’t tell you much. It looks like my book love has transferred into wanting to work at B&N and that I’m also looking for work—absentmindedly from the top status update. I appear to be doing something still with writing, which is good to know especially since I didn’t go on to do fashion design!***
If you look at your Facebook, what would your high school self think?
PS: That playlist mentioned in the final status update? You can see what Bestie Danielle and I have put together here. (If you’re on Spotify, feel free to add any song as long as it is from the time period of 1989ish-1996.)
* Dear High School Alicia, you never went to Marakesh. Facebook is just sort of retarded.
** Trust me, it’s better that you went for the education degree than the design degree. You’ll understand and appreciate this once you hit 29ish.
*** Get over it, HSA, fashion design wouldn’t have worked out. TRUST ME.