freshman me to future me

Dear FutureMe, I made a time capsule when I was 8 years old. My older brother and I recorded a few hours of interesting chit chat onto a cassette tape and put it in the capsule. We wrote letters to our future selves. We swore solemnly not to open the sealed (with skate tape) box until I turned 18--in a long ten years, lest the ghosts of our past selves come back to haunt us for breaking the promise. I broke into it two years later in a moment of vulnerability. So here's to hoping I don't find a way to hack into FutureMe.org to find out what 18 year old me has to say to my 28 year old self. I am 18 years old and a freshman in college. I think I want to be a Political Science-International Relations major, but I have a secret burning passion to drop out of school and write screenplays. (I have yet to come up with a single interesting idea, much less a full fledged screenplay--not necessarily even original.) I also love to make people laugh and long to try my luck on a sitcom. I'm not sure what I want to do with my life. I don't study hard enough, but I aspire to be great. (Is that even correct?) I find using correct punctuation and capitalization online or in e-mails stuffy, overbearing, and pretentious. today is my mom's birthday and i forgot it until my younger brother called me to remind me. i feel like a rotten person. i've become the insensitive college kid who thinks she's independent the minute she gets to college and forgets her family. i feel like my dickhead older brother who i always hated on for being insensitive about forgetting these kind of things. the thing is, i'm not busy all the time. i'm just a dumb ass and i forgot. i wrote the date several times on pieces of paper today and it just didn't click. no excuses for this one: i'm a dumbass. i really like my boyfriend but when we were friends, his higher qualifications for "love" made me question if i'd really ever loved anyone besides my family. i think he's smarter than me but sometimes he doesn't apply himself. he's most irresistible to me when he's busy (doing sports and pursuing what he loves--he hasn't found anything he likes to do yet, much less love) and has an active schedule. i like the banana nut wraps at our neighborhood dining hall. this is a long-winded message and i hope i still enjoy it in ten years. i am ice skating and working at a rink. i enjoy it when i'm busy--this way i appreciate the time i have to be with people i enjoy and the time i have to do my homework. i hope barack obama won the '08 presidential elections. i hope at the very least (if i stuck it through undergrad and made it to grad school) that i'm working for the white house (remember how much you used to adore 'the west wing?'). i suppose being a un ambassador would be sweet (if it's still around). how is china doing? how is your chinese? ten years is a long ass time. if you go into directing, then good for you. if you ever get on broadway, good for you. (childhood dream, remember?) i wonder if you have kids yet and if you got a c-section or did it the natural way. or if you adopted as you always said you would. i wonder if you decided to be boring and become a lawyer, because that's the best way to save the world. i wonder if you've learned to enjoy any sort of alcohol besides smirnoff ice. i wonder if you have a dog. i wonder if you still talk to your family, because you love them like crazy right now. i wonder if you continued to forget your mother's birthday like a complete dumbass. i hope i'm still alive. i hope you've been to austria and eastern europe by the time you receive this or at least have plans to. i hope you haven't become a fatter ass since freshman year. (120 pounds at 5'2" on a LIGHT day...pretty pathetic.) i hope you still remember how not to take life too seriously sometimes. i hope you're making hella bank at the expense of all the little people. i hope you know that i'm joking about the previous statement. (i also hope you found that relatively amusing--at least extract some sort of sentimentality out of reading about your old sense of humor.) i hope... good song by the dixie chicks. i hope you don't forget to tell the people that you do love exactly that: that you love them. i hope you remember that finding balance is the key to a happy life. i hope you're happy! i hope you never give up on your dreams. i also hope you've started putting some walk into that talk about all the big dreams you have / had. last thing: i hope you know how to cook--well. here's to you. here's to me. happy birthday. me. (you?!)