Dear Future Me,
If you’re reading this, you’re about to embark upon the next chapter of your life. College. You’re about to leave your family and your friends and everything you have ever known behind. This is the turning point, the milestone you have looked at over the years.
You worked so hard to get here. You woke up at five in the morning to take ACT practice classes and you spent your winter vacation holed up in your room, writing admission essays that would determine your life after high school. You applied for countless scholarships and tried to talk less in class so your teacher would write a decent letter of recommendation. You had a complete breakdown the week before acceptance letters arrived and told your best friend that you would never get into your dream school. And then decision day came and you saw the confetti fall on your computer screen and you smiled. Because you got in.
You’re about to go off to college, and you’re a mess of nerves and excitement and fear and joy.
Summer flew past in a blur of starry night skies and crowed cars, driving aimlessly around the town you knew so well. You thought you would cry at high school graduation but you didn’t. But you did cry in your car after you said goodbye to your best friend, watching as she drove away into her new life.
Your room is all packed up into boxes and bags. Your mom told you not to bring fourteen pairs of shoes. You tried to convince yourself you needed them all as you shoved one more pair of boots into a suitcase.
You’re about to be on your own for the first time. But you won’t be truly alone. Because you know you can call your brother when classes get too stressful, and you’ll surely call your dad when you wake up with a sore throat one morning and immediately self-diagnosis yourself with strep. You have a full support system behind you, ready to catch you as you slip and fall in the process of it all.
I hope this next chapter of your life is everything you want it to be. I hope you take advantage of the education you will receive. I hope you meet people who inspire you, and I hope you meet people who make you laugh. I hope you’ll become stronger and kinder and more compassionate. I hope you’ll be ready to go out and face the world. Most of all, I hope you will be happy. That’s all you ever wanted to be.
Love,
Me
