A letter from August 29th, 2020

Dear Future Me, Happy 25th! I hope you're doing well. To celebrate, I'm here to burden you with some questions that could either make you very happy or very sad. Hopefully the former. It's like a fun little surprise present! Everyone likes surprises, even you. So: 1. Do you live in the US again? If you do, is it everything you thought it would be? Do you get really sad about missing out on formative experiences your friends had? Does it really matter? (If you don't: where do you live? Why? Are you happier here, do you think?) 2. Have you been in a real relationship yet? Are you in one? I'm still warming up to the idea, but I think I'd like to be in one at some point, you know, as opposed to Literally Never, like the plan was before. If you have been/are in one, hopefully you really like/d them, and hopefully they really like/d you too. I watched a RuPaul interview this morning where he talks about how he knows his husband loves him more than anything else with absolute certainty. I'm not saying that's the aspiration, but it's kind of the aspiration. 3. Are you in touch with your childhood friends? This is more of something I need to make a present and active effort on, but if I succeed, I hope you're close to them. I hope you're close to that whole community, or at least the parts you've known forever. I hope your hometown is a place you can go back to and still feel at home in. 4. Do you have a better group of friends? I have a few friends now, but none that I feel like I really know and that really know me, which hasn't been fun for me, as someone who, as I've recently really dramatically realized, derives a good chunk of their energy from other people (contrary to popular belief). I hope you're around people that make you feel loved all the time. I hope you're around people who make you feel like the best version of yourself. 5. Does the country that Me From Five Years Ago presently lives in ever feel like home? What do I gain from here? Was it worth it? Do I find something that I love that grounds me a bit? That makes the world a little more bearable than it is now? Lightning round: 6. Have you been to a Mitski concert? 7. How fluent are you in Hindi? 8. How many countries have you visited? 9. How many journals are you published in? 10. How many push-ups can you do? (Wayward way of asking whether you're still a little fat) 11. Are you in/did you go to grad school? (If so, are you happy with where you've gone?) 12. Do you know in what way you want to change the world? 13. Does it get better? Not to be morbid, but I also really hope you're alive to see this. I'm making some (slow but sure) progress on myself after a really alarmingly long dip into an unaided depression in my first year of college, and I'm really figuring it out. And it's different from before, because I'm genuinely beginning to feel like myself instead of numbly trying to assuage myself. I'm creating more, and I'm feeling more, and trying to branch out more. Things are looking up these days. I hope they continue to, and that you end up happier than we've ever been. We definitely deserve it. Love you, Love, You!