Dear Sixth Grade Victoria,

Your favorite color is not black. You will not paint your room blood red. You don't like to be alone. You will not take that trip to Australia. You will not live at your address forever, actually you will move this year. And then one day you will move again. You're mom will have one more child.You will spend a lot of time trying to be someone your not. You will get into a petty relationship and it will end quickly. Your mom will not let you dye your hair. You will not make any friends and you will never see majority of these people again. And when you do catch a glimpse of them in public they will turn their eyes like they never knew who you were. This the year you will learn to wear sadness on the walls of your heart. This is something you still are trying to forget how to do.

But you have so much time. No, really. All of this time you spend trying to create yourself into a different person is being wasted. The mistakes you made won't matter six years from now, trust me. So many amazing things are about to happen. But some amazing things did happen that you missed this year.

You will read you're two favorite books for the first time this year and I'm jealous of the way you will fall in love with these characters. You will realize how sensitive you honestly are when you read these books. You will learn that libraries and librarians are a godsend. You will learn to find yourself in between the spines of books. Your mom will have a child and she will be your sister, and you will cherish her. You will learn that you deeply love to write, and it will take you a while to look yourself in the mirror and say this. You want to be a writer. You feel it but you won't say it. You will learn the value of partner work but you will also learn that you're better at working alone. You will learn so much about yourself and you will try to forget it; but don't.

You know I can't lie to you, the next few years will be hard. Something you once thought was so strong will crumble. The way you feel about yourself will change, and change again. You will make friends, I promise. You will figure out how to be alone and with people at the same time. This year will scar you and you will carry it in all the messenger bags you own, but you will never forget where you come from. You will learn history about your family. You will learn how important it is to keep the things you write. You will become the most amazing person you know and you will still have so much time! Even now you have so much time.

I refuse to ruin your future for you but just know, it gets a whole lot better, because let's be honest; your favorite color is not black.

With Love,

College Freshman Victoria

P.S. Grandma was right about everything. Literally everything. Take notes, no really you will need them, because she is right about everything. Just trust me.