The future is a liar.  The  future is a  multi-level marketing  scheme on its best days,  and a full-blown con 
artist on its worst. The future showed up on every first day of school I’ve ever had, and found me rocking 
a fit that always looked a little flyer  laid out  on the  bed  the night before.  Ah yes,  the future, bearing its 
highlighters  and composition notebooks,  grinning at me  with pearly veneers,  clapping me  on the back 
with its massive hands–dodgy  about answering  any questions.  The future  is bright.  The future loves a 
graduation ceremony.  The future has the wrong contact information  listed on its website.  I’ve achieved 
the highest  level  of  education  one  can  in  this  country,  and  still,  the future  is  a dark hallway  with a 
flickering light.  The future  is  always  a  benevolent forethought;  always  whispering  the best thing that 
could ever  possibly happen  into your slumbering ears  at night,  making promises of implication,  telling 
lies of omission.  How many gold stars can I get for this now?  The future  has been gaslighting me  since 
my fifth grade yearbook,  the future  loves a superlative.  “Most likely to succeed.”  The future didn’t dare 
disclose that I was also the most likely  to get their heart broken  on a biannual basis  in adulthood.  Most 
likely to get pulled over on any given highway.  The future sends me menacing love-letters in the form of 
overdue hospital bills,  insisting that  we work this thing out,  we’re just in it  too deep  to  forget this now. 
I’m  terrified  that  the  future   I   always   dreamt   of–   the  one  that  might’ve  gathered   me  up  into  a
congratulatory   embrace,   jumped   the  broom  with  me   on  my  wedding  day,   handed  me   my  first 
grandchild on the front porch of a family home–  is already behind us,  waving in the rearview mirror.   Or 
maybe it was always  a mirage;   a  distortion.   It  seems  that  what  lies  ahead  now  is  just  a  terrifying 
combination of watching and waiting.  In the tenth grade,  I struggled  to grasp the difference between le 
future proche, (I am going to) and le future simple, (I will).  Je vais être heureux I would say, In the future, 
I am going to be happy.  “No, Therêse,”  my teacher would tut in exasperation.  “You should say,  je serai 
heureux, I will be happy, because that is the tense we use when things are less certain.”  With I wink, she 
would add, “Because you never really know about that kind of thing in the future, right?”