Imagine Me

For better or worse (and trust me, it works both ways), I have often found myself to be a person more concerned with the future than the present. If I were a therapist, I'd likely trace this back to childhood trauma and the need to anticipate my parents' emotions, helping them regulate themselves to keep me emotionally safe. Kids are great at pattern recognition, and I became a master. I knew that if I could predict my parents' future needs or make my future self better, I could secure some degree of peace—a peace I was always searching for.

Thanks for reading Candice’s Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

I remember telling my therapist, "I want you to help me heal, but only up until the point where I stop being funny," confessing that my sense of humor was fueled by trauma. I feel the same about my obsession with the future. While this forward-thinking mindset was born from difficult moments, it has also served me well in ways that my 10-year-old self, who prayed for better days (thanks, kid Candice), would be overjoyed to see.

As I keep developing internally, the world around me unravels, making it harder to anticipate the future—a scary concept for someone so indebted to the unseen road. When the patterns of the years ahead become unclear, many of us start dreaming of alternative worlds. This is the most crucial role of innovators and creators: to conceive the future and bring it into the present, so we can build the bridges that will carry us there. This tandem building is what makes it all possible. The younger me struggled to grasp it, as I was too busy living ahead of myself, searching for peace.

One of my first jobs after college required me to work a week ahead of schedule—an ideal role. While everyone else lived in the present, I was already a week or two in the future. Sometimes, I'd lose track of the actual date; while it might have been Sunday, October 20th, for others, in my mind, it was already October 27th. I could pre-load some of my work, but the present is always with us. When things needed to be changed, added, or eliminated, I struggled the most—facing the immediate problem before me rather than obsessing over a future with no immediate bearing.

As my 20-something self learned the hard way (and my 30- and 40-something self, too), the future and present constantly collide. The more attention you give today, the better the future might be. The bridges the futurists envision are easier to build when the foundations of the present are strong. We might reach the future only to discover that those original bridges no longer serve our new world. Still, having a solid foundation while constructing the new crossings is ideal for world-building. What we've built, what we are building, and what will be are in intimate partnership.

When my mother died at 49, just shy of her 50th birthday, my darkest thoughts feared that my 40s might be a swan song, that our shared lineage would cut my life short, making the future unattainable. Thankfully, the data proves me wrong—my great-grandmother even attended my mother's funeral. We live long lives when we don't let life get in the way.

My louder and more ambitious side has always envisioned my 50-year-old self, even as a child, as the person I most want to become. I've always seen her clearly—this internally beautiful, joyful woman, at peace with her present. Imagine me at peace, not in some distant world, but today. Whenever I find myself on a path that won't lead to her, I know it's time to pivot, and that's terrifying. There you are, living a fine enough life, and suddenly, she's in the back of your mind, like a Siren, urging you to change course. As my 50th year draws closer, her call grows louder and more insistent. She's asking me to care more deeply about the present so we might meet one day.

The trauma that made me obsessed with both the future and the kind of peace that surpasses present circumstances has led me down many roads. Some have added to the future I crave, and some have reminded me of what it looks like not to believe in a radically beautiful future right here in the present. I am so grateful that my past, present, and future selves are united, working like an orchestra, constantly tuning for a better note. My job is to ensure they each take up just enough space to make them valuable co-conspirators in my life's grand symphony.

All things in due time. All things.

Thanks for reading Candice’s Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.