Dear my 17-year-old self,

You won't know anything about what the future would bring, but I can assure you that your future will be as bright as the biggest star in the galaxy. Now that I, your seven-years-older counterpart, have gone to college, been outside in the real world, and lived a little bit, I can confidently say that we have gained a little bit more perspective. This letter serves to tell you all of the things that you would need to know to get a better handle on this crazy bomb cyclone called life.

You will want to move out of the state and go to college away from home. And surprisingly, you will love it. Where you are right now is only the tip of the iceberg of where you will be going. At this moment, you are on top of the high school world, getting ready for all of the senior year activities, and spending all your free time with your friends.

But in the back of your mind, you do not know if it is the right choice to go to school out of state. I understand how terrifying it is and how much you want to curl under your blankets and forget about it, but trust me when I say that you will be glad you did brave it in a new frontier.

You will embrace good and true friends. While your high school friends are your friends now, you will learn that your truest friends are the ones that you will make in college. You think right now that you will never find better friends than these people in high school, but as you expand your horizons, you will be more at ease with your college friends.

It will be college that teaches you the meaning of loving another person and what it takes to be there for them. Your high school friends and life will fade into the distant memory some days, and while there are good times there to remember, it is a natural progression to want to find deeper, more meaningful relationships.

You are still trying to mature and grow as an individual. I still do not have all the answers or all the secrets to "adulting" unfortunately. Some days, it is difficult enough to find clean underwear and still make it to work with half your sanity intact. But we are a pretty good work-in-progress overall and, at the very least, we'll still get up in the morning and try to put the best foot forward.

You will learn the meaning of love. Maybe it won't quite be in the romance department yet but you will learn to love your family more than just "thanks for cooking dinner," kind of way, love your friends in the sense of "I love you like family," and love life like "yeah you can beat me down but I'll get back up," sort of way. And you'll roll with the punches and the years go by.

So enjoy being a kid for awhile because your life will be just a little bit richer as the years go by.

Love always,

Your 24-year-old self