Dear High School Self,
Don’t work so hard. I promise you don't have to. An extra club isn’t going to matter as much as a good night’s sleep, and you won’t remember volunteering at the Art Fair, but you will remember the nights out with friends. (Also, volunteering at an Art Fair isn’t really helping anyone—find something useful to do). Your grades are good, and I won’t pretend that isn’t important. You’ll also be reading some of the greatest books in the English language. Read them. Seriously. Later, when you want to be a writer, you’ll wish you had.
You're sitting in statistics class third period, a senior in high school, and are about to embark on your auditions for college. You are frightened—after all your experience, won’t people laugh if you get rejected? Isn’t that what you are most afraid of, falling off your accomplishments?
Well, I’m here to tell you that it will all be ok. Even when it doesn’t turn out how you want.
Remember how hurt you were when J left you hanging by a thread for months? Well, you’ll see him again in two years. He’ll be doing well, which is good, but only after taking the years to find himself. You’ll see that he was on his own journey, and it didn’t include you. That’s OK.
You're going to get into NYU and move to Manhattan. You'll take classes in singing and dancing and perform in a theatre all summer. Singing will consume you until it has eaten everything you have, and then it stops. Letting go is more difficult than you could ever imagine, yet still it will not kill you. Dreams change.
Look around at the choir girls, the speech team, the M—‘s and the E—‘s and the K—‘s. They are loud, they are “leaders,” and they select people to be in and out of the group. Some of those girls will stay petty; most of them will grow out of it and become better friends to better people. Your life will get bigger.
Notice the girls you spend your time with. In three years, when your heart was broken for the first time, you’ll take a bus down to where D is in college, and play MASH like at the sleepovers you’ve had since you were nine. You’ll show New York City to these girls. Most of all, while they go on to amazing accomplishments, friends, love, and becoming beautiful people, you will be proud.
When you leave high school, you’re going to move to New York and feel yourself expand into a new, bright, strong person. You’ll meet new friends, laugh, and get very, very drunk. You’ll fall in love once and learn how that doesn’t mean you’re meant to be. You’ll cry, a lot. You’ll fall in love again. This time you’re kind to each other, and careful with those feelings. You’ll travel and meet the best people you’ve ever known (so far). And slowly, slowly you’ll realize when you can let the failures go, when it’s time to put the work down and go to bed.
Lots of love,
Emily, who has a new set of problems to worry about now.
