Dear childhood self,
I hope you are having fun playing with your barbies, tamagotchi, ferbie, drawing a picture or playing with whatever toy is hot right now. Enjoy whatever toy you have right now, because in 10 to 15 years you won't be a kid anymore and you won't be as naive as you were before.
Thinking back to when I was your age, life was so much easier when I didn't know about the real world. I didn't know that such bad things could happen. Just know that there are bad things out there that your parents may not be able to protect you from them. You most likely already experienced 9/11, you may not have even known what was going as you were sitting in a bedroom with grandma while she was in shock. That was a crazy day in history and you realized what happened, but you were still kind of clueless. Now fast forward about 15 years and you have seen a lot more bad things happen in the world. There have been wars, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, school shootings, deaths, poverty and many horrific things. Just know that these things are out there and they are hard to avoid.
You, personally, will have to deal with the people around you getting sick and some of them even dying. Your uncle has passed away, or may pass away, when you are 10 years old. I am truly sorry if you felt the pain of that, but death is bound to happen and there will be more of it. In 15 years, 2015-2016, you will experience the most amount of sickness and death than you have so far in your entire life. Your grandfather and great-aunt will go into the hospital for serious medical problems and they will come very close to death, but they will survive and live. Your great grandma and your great-aunt will pass away, which will be hard because you will think of them frequently. But the worst experience you will have to deal with is seeing your dad's best friend, who is also your best friend's dad, pass away. You will be there at the hospital when the plug is pulled, and it will be a very hard experience. It will be difficult to see your best friend that way. You will ball your eyes out at the funeral. You will still think of him frequently and always remember his jokes. You dealt with a lot of death in one year, but you overcame it. You are able to deal with whatever is thrown at you in life.
Your friends will change multiple times throughout your life. There will be some friends that you will meet when you are in elementary school, but they aren’t worth your time because they will make you cry. You will have to move on from some of your great friends because they cause you pain. You will find your best friend in junior high and when you least expect it. She will stay your best friend, but all the other friends in your life will constantly change. You will become best friends with more than one person, but in the end you will drift apart or they will betray you. You will have to get used to new personalities and adjusting to them each time you get to call someone a “best friend.” You are lucky to have your best friend, Jill.
You will get in trouble with the law. I’m not saying that it will be anything major, but you will get in two car accidents and get a speeding ticket. You never expected to get in any sort of trouble.
You won’t find love as easy as you expect. You expect to find the perfect person by the time you are in college. I’m sorry to say that you haven’t found that person. My one piece of advice to you is don’t give up. It will happen when it’s meant to happen.
Even though you may have had hard times, you have had many great times that outweigh the bad. You got into a good university and you are working on getting your degree. You joined a sorority and you’ve met a lot of great people. Your life is going in the right direction.
You’ve helped a lot of people and you’ve impacted many people too. It’s a great passion of yours and you love doing it. You’ve helped out with many different organizations, donated money and joined the bone marrow registry. You've had many great opportunities. You will love every second of helping out.
Your life is a lot different than you originally thought, but you are perfectly okay with that. You aren’t as naïve as before and you’ve really experienced life. Some things in your life might be good and some might be bad, but they’ve led up to the point you’re at in your life today.
Love,
Your future self
This is you today with your person/best friend since junior high
