Dear little me,

I'm writing to let you know that I grew up the way that we hoped. Well mostly. I'm not a princess, nor have I found Prince Charming. There is no castle or kingdom to rule. There isn't a line of adoring fans waiting to get pictures or an autograph. While you may think that this doesn't sound so great, bear with me. We may not be living a fairytale but we did find happiness. At this point in our life, we have done and learned so many things that I just had to share with you.

First, I want you to know that it's OK. You can stop worrying about your future. You can stop being so uptight and oblivious. Take time to enjoy watching "Star Trek" with Dad or running around in the rain with your siblings and having long, meaningful conversations with Mom. Stop trying to control everything in your life. Yes, I know that our family is always late to everything and that it drives you up a wall, but since that's the worst thing about them, they really aren't that bad.

I know you feel alone and left out sometimes, but that's not their fault. You exclude yourself by hiding from them. I hate to break it to you kid, but the dirty jokes that you're judging them for?

There's going to come a time soon when you make jokes even worse than those. I know you have this idea in your head that you have to be perfect, and you have to make everything else perfect, but I promise you that there's beauty in imperfection.

As soon as you can admit that things aren't always OK and that that's OK, you'll be a lot happier, and life will be so much easier.

Second, you shouldn't be so hard on yourself. Maybe that big presentation didn't go as well as you thought. Maybe you forgot a line on stage during a show. So what? It's high school. I know that right now high school seems like the biggest obstacle in the world. I promise it's not. You're going to go to college soon, and you're going to grow so much more than you ever dreamed. You're going to become the person you always wanted to be. In college, we end up finding all the things we didn't in high school.

We find adventure, love and, most importantly, belonging. We do all of the things we wanted to but were to scared to try. The adventures you always wanted will come in the form of 1 a.m. trips to Cookout, driving around Raleigh belting your heart out to '80s music with your new best friends. It'll come by saying "yes" to things, even though they scare you.

We get to meet amazing people and are lucky enough to call them our friends. We finally find where we fit in and belong.

Finally, we find the future we always wanted. I'm not going to lie to you, things aren't always easy. We still struggle with finances. We sometimes feel lonely and misunderstood.

I don't think these feelings will ever go away, but I can promise that they've gotten so much easier to handle. Even though we sometimes still have a hard time waking up in the mornings, when we do get up, it's to do our dream job. We get to take classes to hone our craft; we get to work with some of our favorite people at rehearsals every day.

We get to do what we never thought would be possible — we get to be happy doing what we love.

I really do promise it will all be fine,

Your future self.