A letter from May 12th, 2020

Dear FutureMe, I must say I am excited to share my thoughts that roam on my mind with you. Personally, the number of things that form my train of thoughts is by far endless. In fact, that as you know it, is our biggest enemy. Our mind builds up on the thoughts it creates, as if it had life of its own. It begins to form scenarios in which not always you obtain the result you expect. Stress raises and I let it get the best of us. Although at times it comes in handy. Reason being your work is always on top of it. You are a perfectionist, you make sure everything results at its highest rate. Viewing any possible mistake, detail, or outcome. You hope for a positive feedback, a smile drawn from your viewer. You strive to overachieve your teachers, receive smiles from your loved ones, and to be inspiration to strangers. You insist in proving people wrong when they doubt you. You push when you feel that you are bound to give up. However, you are at times a big procrastinator. You know it’s not in you to do an effortless job, for this reason you wake up exhausted from working all night. You believe your work was made with effort, yet you doubt yourself on any situation. On a test you second guess yourself, on a soccer game you shut down once you make a mistake, even with presents you believe it isn’t enough or perhaps it isn’t what they wanted. You love hard, yet you know your worth. However, you forgive a little too much. You surround yourself with positive vibes. You push others to strive, you make sure they know when they accomplish a goal, and when they make a mistake as well. You have been pushing this year on your grades, on your sport, on your life in general. Your lifestyle has matured, you are a new person. I know there still is a long way to go, but I couldn’t be prouder of who you have become. Wherever life plants you, you find a way to bloom with grace. W-1 It’s said that your surroundings shape and define who you are. Perhaps the style of your bedroom, from colors to furniture and pictures up on the wall. You are driven by class yet vintage looks. You like to display your friendships, yet you’ve grown out of the over excessive pictures glued to your wall. You need two mirrors, full body and one to make yourself presentable. Your bed rests on the corner of a wall, you move too much in your sleep and you’d more than likely fall over. You need a night light to feel safe, but not too bright to the point where it disturbs your sleep. Your house isn’t the biggest. It’s comfortable and modest yet presented elegantly. The backyard holds a tropical mood. Since the property itself is filled with palm trees, a canopy and a hammock suit its presentation. Brownsville isn’t very popular on places for entertainment, but it has become our home since we arrived here. Its places hold emotional memories and due to its small population, it has created many friendships. You hold a close relationship to God. You pray to feel protected before you are about to take a risk. You place every outcome on God’s hands. Nevertheless, he is a big part of you and your world. Things move quickly in our world, from deadlines to game days to one or two parties. One day your world is running so smoothly, but in the blink of an eye it all goes downhill. Make it to Friday. Reset. A day of I’ll do it tomorrow, followed by 6 days of total and utter sensory overload. Over and over again. Although, if we really take things into perspective, I’m in my head excessively. As mentioned before, it is our biggest enemy. I think and rethink and overthink everything, or so I’ve been told. I believe there’s some truth in that; hopefully you’ve grown out of it by now. I believe the cause of such is due to our world’s way of criticizing our every move. You try to live up to the expectations given by our world’s opinion. From making your mom and mentors proud, to being accepted socially. Just one word of advice, you’re the only one that can control your world. You can change a bad outcome to a laugh. You won’t always be able to plan for it, pencil it in your schedule when you feel it best. It is your world, make it your living dream. D-1 Time is the one thing we probably lack the most. Our day consists from waking up at 5 a.m. until 11 p.m. to finally rest. A student athlete’s schedule revolves around school work and practices. It’s hard to fit in social life at times, yet your friendships began to form within your team and school. Soccer has been a huge impact on your life. Not only do you enjoy the adrenaline and the love from the sport, but you’ve learned to analyze the game; to use your mind quickly. It has allowed you to strive to be a better student as well, since you no longer have time to procrastinate because the next day you have a game, you plan ahead to manage the small amount of time you got in your hands. You have become a lot more efficient, you take things into consideration when you wouldn’t even worry about them before. Weekends for the past months have been full of road trips to corpus, San Antonio, and this Thanksgiving you visited Dallas for a showcase tournament. As you can see 24 hours isn’t enough for your day with a routine like yours. You belong to a HOSA team, you also are a member of NHS, you are the secretary of your graduating class of 2020, and you are the captain of your successful team in school. Brownsville United took you in ending summer of last year. Honestly, I never thought it would get you this far. This promising organization not only shaped you into the player you are today but allowed you to apply what you’ve learned with your team. It allowed you to create wonderful friendships and you met your most influential mentors as well. Although you’re always busy, I believe everyone needs some time of their own. Even though it is rare when you are left with personal time, you use it take a breather, organize your room, take a long shower, watch a show to take your mind off of your thoughts. You also enjoy hanging out with your team; after practices, after a game. In terms of food, you enjoy eating out with your team wherever it is we are. At home though, you love to make sandwiches with panela cheese and ham, and we can’t forget our go to veggie sticks. Believe it or not cleaning relaxes you, it creates a more organized environment and you are 10 times more efficient. In the end it’s not about having time. It’s about making time. It has a wonderful way of showing us what really matters. PE-1 There’s a long list of the people that have had an impact in your life. We owe so much to mom. Your morals, beliefs, drive to become someone with education. She has made sure to be an example to you and your brother. Even if at times we argue constantly and demand so much from one another, we both know mom only wants the best of you and thanks to her you are able to further your career and your athletic goals. This past year you joined the Brownsville United Select Team 2001. As mentioned before this team molded you into a new player, they allowed you to prepare for the season and you were able to be a part of them on the field and formed a great bond with some of them. Jocelyn made you feel very welcome in the team, and she became one of the closest ones to you. You look up to Itzel, since she’s a Rockstar on the field, you learned from her fantastic skill. Not only that but you learned from her humble personality and her great way to lead the team. Furthermore, Coach Rosales has completely switched your life around. He began to help you with your college choice, and life choice as well. He has made sure you understand that even if at times it is tough to keep up with soccer and academics, it is necessary to be granted a successful future. Now your wonderful team. Today January 12, 2019; We have made history. Our team won their first tournament in 8 years. Every one of those girls are special in your life. They all contributed into this victory and even though your go heads on head with some of them sometimes, we have all become a one big family and I am extremely proud to be leading this group of champions. Coach Troncoso, has also had huge impact on your history as a player. Since freshmen year brought you into this team. He allowed you to understand that you’re not always going to be correct, you won’t always be a winner, yet you learn from those mistakes. Although you weren’t starter that year, it allowed you to learn from the practices and his coaching towards the team. Even sophomore year didn’t go so well. This year, he believed in you to lead this team and I promise we won’t let him down and I hope that by the time you read this, we had a successful season full of victories. Ania Laguna, your amiga del alma, 3 years and counting. She has helped you shape this team this year, she’s been there in every down in this team and she has been your soccer buddy since day one and it wouldn’t be the same without her. We can’t forget about your best friend, your day one, your right hand. You met him 6 years ago and have been together for about 1 year and half. He has allowed you to make the right life choices since you met. Thanks to his support you have been able to focus on school and when you begin to stress with the overload of work, he knows when to make you understand that it’ll be okay. You really do love him, you hold a very special place in your heart for him. I believe and hope your relationship will make it. When you open this letter, I pray that you two are still together. A reminder that nothing is more important than your happiness, if it’s not making you happy it’s not worth it. I may not know where you’ll be in the future, but just take a deep breath and know that everything will be alright. I double pinky promise. P-1 You never want to forget where we come from. We’re different. I wasn’t born in Brownsville or grew up here. I am different because I don’t relate to the things many of my classmates experienced in their childhood. I am out of the ordinary because I was born in Monterrey N.L. Losing my friends and family in the transition of our movement to Brownsville was extremely hard on you. The change of the social class from your school was a big change since a private education has its differences. Not only was the language a big factor but I was a new citizen, a new student, a new teammate. My accent was very pronounced, and it implied clearly that I didn’t belong here. Finding my way around was beyond difficult the first years. Since my lack of language forced me to repeat 5th grade, I am older than my generation and it was a bit hard to accustom to the environment. I don’t regret it, if I hadn’t been held back, I would be graduating this year and I personally don’t feel ready at all. As years went by, I was able to fix my language with the help of my peers since constantly talking in the language day by day, added practice and allowed me to master the language. Throughout the years I also made a lot of friends, yet as years were added I lost some as well. The shift of middle school to high school was a very life changing, the amount of people you stopped talking to is insane. However, you matured a lot, you learned. You gained the ability to think, speak and act your feelings within bounds of dignity. The measure of your dignity was developed in how spiritual you became during the midst of your frustrations. I knew you had matured when you realized every situation doesn’t need a reaction. Although I can say I’m thankful for all those difficult people in my life. They have shown me exactly who I never want to become. Hopefully you’re not that different than me now, but hopefully you have grown into something I can be proud of. I hope you are still kind, brave and even more. However, the pas cannot be changed, forgotten, edited or erased; you will always have the memories, but you do eventually have to let go no matter how hard you want to hang on. Keep the good memories and throw the negative ones away, keep the lessons and move forward. F-1 I see you smiling, sitting so peacefully; you are simply in awe. You're looking at me, the younger, and naiver, more determined, more self-righteous self; you have nothing but love and gratitude for me. You see my struggle, you see me have momentary outbursts and cry in fits of rage; and you see that I make it through. My pain, my struggles, my issues are not what define me. You see that I make it through this rough patch, and you know that I come out stronger, smarter and more self-aware than ever before. Future self, I know that you're so proud of me for learning these lessons, for rolling up my sleeves and doing the work on myself that's required; for getting into the trenches of my own life to prepare me for my next chapter. You're oozing with awareness and you see that I am getting it. Day by day, I am trying, and I am learning. I hope you have done all the things I wish I do. I hope that you have stayed true to yourself, maintained your beliefs and stood your ground. I’m hoping that we not only make a mark on the world, but a mark on the people that we meet in our life. Because if there's one thing I know, it's that I want to be an influence - I want you to be an influence. I want to inspire people that I meet to be a good person. I want to inspire people to follow their dreams and to never give up on what they want. So, if you've done that, I thank you and look forward to the people I meet along the way. I hope you are happy. I hope you choose happiness every day. I hope you are eliminating people and things that make you unhappy from your life. Because it’s not worth your time if it’s not making you happy. I hope you’re not at some job you hate. I hope you’re not miserable waking up every morning. And if you are, do me a favor: change something. Change whatever is making you unhappy. Choose happiness. I hope you are happy. embrace every moment. I hope you remember that life is precious. Hopefully you got into Texas A&M College Station. Hopefully you rock that veterinary career. I beg you to become who you aspire to be. I have so many expectations for you, yet for some reason I know you got it. I know that I will open this letter smiling and questioning why I was so worried about this. I believe you will prove me wrong. I very much believe you will meet all your goals, happy early birthday love, 18 never looked so good . Love forever, Your younger you