A letter from June 10th, 2020

Dear FutureMe, It is crazy to think that high school is all finished. All of the memories that were made, all of the accomplishments you have achieved, and all of the friends you got to meet. Wouldn’t you say freshman year was the scariest? I would. Freshman year was a start of a new beginning. From seeing your bestfriends that you grew up with everyday to having to meet new people was definitely a challenge. The first day that you walked in it was the stereotypical new kid. You were quiet when you first walked in and you looked lost. When people would approach you, you wouldn’t know what to say. But as school got deeper into the year you started to pick up a routine. You began to step out of your comfort zone and started meeting new people and even trying out for sports teams. A big stepping stone was making the basketball team. It’s what allowed you to meet new people and begin new friendships - even bad ones. Making the team with a broken thumb was definitely a big accomplishment, and maybe that was what pushed you to become more confident in yourself. Freshman year was the year you made yourself known - in a good way. If you remember reading the book Fences by August Winston a good quote that would sum up freshman year was said by Troy, “Don't you try and go through life worrying about if somebody like you or not. You best be making sure they doing right by you”. This meaning that you shouldn’t be worried about what people thought about you but what the people around you did for you. Skipping all the way to junior year, you definitely had a hard time academically wise. It was the time where you began thinking about what college are you gonna go to, what majors are you gonna major in, and even more important, what are you gonna do for the rest of your life. It was a time where you believed that if by taking advanced classes it would make you look smarter and get into better colleges. And yes, it’s probably true that you would get into better colleges by taking advanced colleges, but it wasn’t a time where image was better than academics. Although you weren’t academically inclined to be taking as many advanced placement classes, you still put one hundred percent into every assignment, every project, and every exam. Socially wise, you were in a great position. You had a great friend group around you that you got to survive high school with. The final year of high school, senior year! To be honest, I am beyond shocked as to how fast the last four years went. It feels like yesterday, waking up on the first day of school, getting the first day of school outfit on and going through all of the boring class itineraries. It’s crazy to think that those four years are now in the past and you are going off to college. Going into senior year was a piece of cake. You knew that it was the last year to do whatever you didn’t get to do the last three years and as Myrtle from The Great Gatsby said, “You can't live forever; you can't live forever.” This meaning that you should live your life by making memories while they last because you won’t get those chances again. Freshman year you were a shrimp compared to all of the seniors, but at this point right now as I am writing this you are one of those big, scary seniors that the freshman looked up to. Even though you didn’t get to finish the last semester with all of your bestfriends or see all of your amazing teachers you got through it - somehow. COVID-19 definitely took a big chunk out of the high school experience. You’ll never get to experience senior skip day or be a part of senior pranks, but you will get a chance to experience college life and learn to be independent. And although you won’t get to enjoy senior skip day or even do some crazy pranks, it was still an amazing experience with the best of friends and a supportive teaching staff. As the great William Shakespeare wrote in his book Hamlet, “If it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all.” But to put in terms of modern day, if you haven’t experienced what life has to come it will come, what you have prepared for will be vital, but don’t judge the present for what the future has to bring.