Dear Myself Plus 10 Months and a whole lot of Senior Year experiences,

At the beginning of this summer, I went to my cousin's graduation at Livingston High School. As the valedictorian gave his speech, he mentioned a letter that he had received prior two weeks to the graduation ceremony. While many of us might think that the most important letter anyone could receive in high school is their letter of acceptance into the school of his or her choice, the valedictorian was talking about a different letter. Everybody in the Livingston school district had written one when they were in 6th grade. That far back! I was surprised and jealous. I realized that having your 6th grade self as a companion as you graduated was the best gift ever. I can picture going up on stage, being handed a diploma, and feeling infinitely lonely because that one piece of paper deems me a young adult. Having the dreams and the aspirations of your younger self support you or show you what you have left to do seems like the best way to graduate school. It's poetic in the sense that when you receive your diploma, you have your past self's memories and demands, your present self's anxiety and nervousness, and your future self's hopefulness and survivor spirit. However, my school district didn't do that when I was younger, so I have to make do with myself minus 10 months of senior year.

I know senior year is going to be hectic, and I know that I will have a lot of obstacles, mainly my own flaws that hinder me. But I'm also looking forward to the communal feeling of fighting the tiredness and fatigue to finish the paper on time or to get in our Common Applications by the deadline. Even if my school is small (and I hate small), I do love the tight-knit atmosphere I receive from my friends and family. We know one another and have known each other since elementary school. I want to go to a large school, one where I won't have to be enclosed by the boundaries of a limiting amount of people. I have always wanted that, but I'm also getting the nostalgia of losing this small school. I won't be in touch with the same people I have been close with for the past 10 years of my life. A school year from now, I hope I won't forget all the good a small school did for me.

I want to remember that I fought hard to get where I am, and I want to be sure that I'm still dreaming big. Although I can't be valedictorian of my school (there are a LOT of smart people at my school), my 8th grade self did dream of getting into the Newspaper club and being published. Even now I can say I have successfully complete that dream, but it doesn't just end at high school. Dreams have a tendency to expand and to contract and to live its own life. I want to get published in a college newspaper or journal. I want to be a DJ on a college radio station and to play my type of songs for others to hear and to take comfort in. I want to take an internship with Google, to experience that fun and creative atmosphere I feel that they have. I want to spend my days in New York City, the city I grew up in and still call home, even if I haven't lived there physically since I was four years old. I know that I demand a lot out of myself, at least I hope that does not go away as I get older, but I also know I'm capable of completing every single thing on that list.

There are the smaller things I need to complete before I graduate. I need to revamp the newspaper club at my high school. I want to make it so big and irresistible that young middle school kids will dream of being published the way I dreamed of it. I want to make it on the varsity tennis team, even as an alternate, because I want to prove to myself that I can do it when I put my mind to it. Simple dreams really and all ones that I can complete within this fall, but I promise that they aren't going to be easy.

These dreams can also seem very limited to myself, but trust me when I say that every single person has weird, cute, small, big, ugly, and interesting dreams like mine. There are the dreams that we share to the world and there are the ones that we would rather keep to ourselves. In a school year from now, I want to remember everything that I set out for myself and the things I still hope to have happen. So, to my older self, don't forget to continue dreaming and fighting for what you want.

Have fun your senior year,

Chloe

August 27, 2016