Greetings from your grade 12 year

Dear FutureMe, It's been a long time. Actually, It hasn't for me. I just sent you an email set to be delivered in 2016. Remember writing that? I felt like it was kind of lame after reading some of the other letters so I thought I'd write another one that was more meaningful so that maybe in five years when my letter gets put on this site people reading it will be inspired, like I was by some old letters. Gosh, I hope you're still using this address by the time this is letter is delivered. If you're feeling sad, I want you to pull up your favorite song online and listen to it. Something that makes you feel at peace with the world. Something acoustic. Something you would have listened to with your friends in art. Something that will make you cry, because I bet you're overdue for a good cry by now. Where are you living now? I never really made a plan for after film school. I had a general idea of what I wanted to do after but I never got much further. Thinking about the future scares the heck out of me to be honest. What if I don't finish school? What if everything goes horribly wrong? It makes life feel so much more real. Right now it feels like a dream. Right now all I have to worry about is not having a mental breakdown mid-semester and graduating on time. Life is so simple for me right now. I would almost go as far as to say it's going well. I'm going to England soon with band. I guess that'll seem like ancient history to you. It'll be the same blur of feelings and snapshot memories to you that Quebec is to me right now. Did you keep in-touch with Mr G for a while? Did you keep playing the clarinet? Do you even still have my clarinet? I hope you took good care of it either way. Remember how much it means to me right now? Remember being in band? Remember the songs and how happy you used to get while playing? Like anything is possible. Free. Happy. I hope you kept playing for a while, and still are. Remember how you wanted to get a degree in music and play in an orchestra. I hope you achieve that, if you haven't already. You're a good player. Great, even. You just need to be more confident and more willing to make mistakes. They won't hurt you... They're the only way to make things better some times. Are you still doing art, other than makeup art? Do you still pull out your colored pencils and sketch? Do you paint? Do you do portraits? Have you sold anything by now, other than that one your aunt commissioned at the beginning of Grade 12? I hope so. I hope you still get that excited, urgent feeling in your stomach when you come up with a new idea and start it. I hope you still get that warm sensation when you look at something you've finished. How did your AP series go? I hope you did something good with those. They better not be sitting in a dusty folder somewhere. They'll take you back to good times. Right now I'm mid-way through my fifth one, which technically means I'm behind, but I'll catch up after I finish writing this letter, probably. I hope if you've stopped this inspires you to start again, and if you haven't it inspires you to do something newer, bigger, and better than anything you've ever done. The same goes for your clarinet playing. If you've stopped either, you'd better damn start before I come to the future and kick your ass, OK? :) Do you still have birds? Remember Doc, Rose, Friggy and Bob? Your budgies from this time? They're so freaking cute. Bob has already passed on, but the rest are still alive and more annoying than ever here. Haha. I couldn't bring them with me to Vancouver. I'm kind of happy about that, to be honest. I don't think I would have the time to take proper care of them.They deserve a lot more than that. How much longer did they live? How's the family? How are Mom and Dad? Step Mom? The girls? The boys? Grandma? Your Aunts, uncles, cousins? How many new memories have you made with them? Good or bad? Your siblings will be what, 10, 11, 15, 17 and 27? You were never that great with ages. You'll be 22. Remember when turning 18 seemed like such a big deal? When graduating,moving out and away was so scary, yet so exciting? The future is so foggy and unpredictable. When I picture my future a year from now, I think of living in a small apartment with my friends, all too busy working on our projects, poor as dirt and barely getting by but doing so regardless. I'm imagining that we'll stay friends for a long time. Was I right? Are you still in contact with your friends from high school? How about your friends from junior high? There are only 2 of those left, soon to be one right now. (You probably know who I'm talking about right now, haha.) Cherish them. Cherish your friends and family so much. Remember how much you fucking care about them. Don't let yourself get cold and jaded. It doesn't suit you. You need people in your life, remember? God. I don't know what else to say. Just... remember what's important. Remember that nothing is ever quite as bad as it seems while you're in the middle of it. Eventually everything has to end. Even happiness. You're going to face things worse than I can even imagine. You're going to climb mountains taller than Mt Everest and you're going to do great, great things. Whether or not you have faith in yourself I have faith in future me, which IS you. When you're down on your luck, remember me. I know this is really freakin' cheesy, alright? Remember the high expectations I have. Remember that there are people who care about you. Don't dwell on the bad. Just distract yourself until you can work through it. You're gonna go places, kid. If you feel trapped, just buy the cheapest plane ticket, buy the cheapest ticket available at the local airport and go somewhere for a week or something. Go blow bubbles on the beach. Go to a pet store and pet some animals. Don't stay in your goddamn comfort zone, for god's sake. Your comfort zone is the enemy. Live a little, for god's sake. Don't be me. I'm a smart kid but my comfort zone is about the size of a teaspoon. I have not lived a meaningful life, thus far. Remember in English how the big overarching question was 'what is the meaning of life?' Well fuck the meaning of life. There is no meaning. You have to make it for yourself. There is no meaning to life if your life isn't meaningful, and it'll only be meaningful if you do something about it. If you died right now and had the choice between living this life over and being burned alive for the rest of eternity, which would you choose? If you chose the latter, you didn't do it right...but there's still time. If you chose the former, good for you. Seriously. You've accomplished more than your 17 year old self ever did and more than your 16 year old self ever thought you would. Just keep doing it. Don't be a little bitch. Remember that the funnest times are the ones where the situation is the worst, but you make the best out of them. Life's lessons are made to be learned the hard way...don't settle for any of that 'easy way' shit...screwing up builds character and makes you a more interesting and complex person. Geeze. Just...don't give up, I guess. It seems so nice to just drift, but I will kick your ass if you become a fucking twig on a river, got it? You know what twigs on rivers do? Nothing. They don't have friends, families, jobs or lives. They don't get to tell fantastic stories to their friends over a beer, or their grandchildren over hot chocolate at bed time. Why? Well mostly because they're twigs but also because they're passive... "Oh look, I'm headed for a waterfall. Oh well." "My arm just fell off. So what." "I'm being used as part of a dam? Whatever." Don't be a goddamned twig. (Not 'twig' in the sense of a skinny person. Heck, be skinny all you want, I don't mind) Be a fucking majestic duck or an otter or a bear or something. God, this should be a letter to my past self with all this cheesy fortune cookie philosophy I've spewed. Still, if you're not doing this shit, what the fuck are you doing and why aren't you doing what I'm telling you to do, goddamn it? Well I'm going to wrap up now. There's still 10 minutes in the episode of Dexter I'm watching and I want to go to bed or work on my art project or make some food or something. I'm tired of writing this letter. Haha. Peace out, You