A letter from May 27th, 2020

Dear FutureMe, I don't exactly know the best way to start this letter. Hi, I guess? I wonder what stage in your life you're at these days. If everything's on track, you should be in pharmacy school. Maybe you have a nice relationship and are preparing for the future and everything has gone exactly the way you planned it. Then again, that was never really our thing. So you're probably still figuring things out, taking it day by day, not sure what's coming next. No matter where you are in your life, it's a good place, the right place, exactly where you're meant to be. I know that you probably don't think you're supposed to be in the place you are, but that's okay too. 2020 you thought the same thing. I want to give a short summary of what's happened in 2020, so that you can reflect with laughter and with tears. I hope that it'll be a moment of nostalgia in which you shake your head at the simplicity of life. It all seems so much more easy when you look back on these moments. Today, May 27, 2020, you are doing online orientation for college, since a national pandemic prohibited you from going to enjoy the experience physically. It's been a hard few months. You had several events taken from you and didn't get the traditional senior year you deserved. You got to graduate, distantly, outdoors, and in a way no one expected. But you graduated. You did it. The same girl that thought she wouldn't see her graduation because her mental health distorted her image of life was able to walk across a stage and see the life that she'd never thought she had have a new beginning. Now it's easy to see a future in which I get to open this letter in five years. Also in 2020, you've experienced heartbreak. I hope as you reflect on these past relationships in which you were either abandoned, the second choice, or treated with a toxicity no one deserves, that you know what kind of relationships that you do deserve. Maybe you're in a relationship in 2025, maybe you're not. Either way, I hope that the love you so dearly crave is one you've found within yourself. In 2020, at just 17 years old, it's easy to be naive and not understand the importance of the right kind of love. I know that I am immature in love, seeking too much validation, so I hope that in 5 years, you are reading this with the understanding of what love is. In 5 years, I hope you're still friends with the ones who helped you identify what true friendship really is. There are so many people that you gave your heart to in advance, only to have them take a piece as if it belonged to them and not you. I hope you're in touch with the people who guarded your heart and offered you a piece of theirs in return. I don't know life without them yet, but you've been separated from them by distance for a while now, so I hope you remember the lessons they taught you and stay in touch. If not, when you read this, send a kind letter to Katie, Kalin, Katherine, Blake, Micah, Josh, and Caleb. They shaped you into who you are and you should credit them for the person you've been in the past. Hopefully you've made lots of friends through school and life by now, so don't forget to thank them for the experiences and the growth they've given you as well. Life won't always be as simple as it is the moment I wrote this letter. I don't like typing that at 17 and I know you won't like reading that at 22. Take the good with the bad. There will be moments that will put you back into the mindset of the person you used to be. Don't sit in those moments, remember to push forward so that you can grow into the person you know you should be. There are so many good, joyous moments in life. Don't forget them. Remember to live in the soft moments that sit in the back of your mind. Go to a good concert. Watch the sunrise. Pet a dog. Compliment a stranger. Sing a little too loud. Don't apologize for who you are. Those things are what life is about. There will never be perfect moments where everything is happy all the time. You have to create the happiness around you and within you. Be the person who brings light into peoples lives. Don't forget to love loudly. People have always wanted to quiet the way you love and they might always try to quiet it. Shout it from the rooftops, hug every person you see, say I love you too many times. It's not a bad thing to love too much. Love too much rather than too little. It's gonna be okay, you dweeb, eventually someone is gonna be in love with the way you love. No one ever complained about being too loved by a friend, a partner, a pal. Love until the world has dissolved and the sun is no longer. Sincerely, you.