A letter from December 23rd, 2020

Dear FutureMe, Hey. It's you again, but who else could it be. I had a little bit of an existential crisis a couple of minutes ago. I was watching Private Practice on Netflix and one of the characters was at the gravesite of his wife, talking to her grave about what he had been up to in his life. Somehow, I projected that scene into my own life and I pictured me and my mother's grave. It was kinda like a vision in my head. I was at her gravesite, talking to her about the life I was living, and then it suddenly switched up to me being extremely emotional and telling her all the things that I could've never told her when she was alive; how she hurt me and tore me apart in more ways than one as a kid, how she sent me into a hurtling state of depression in middle school, etc. The pain she caused and put me through throughout my childhood was the main topic. And then I pictured actually telling that to her face in the present moment, and I can honestly say that telling her now will do nothing. For the years and years that I've tried telling her, she has yet to truly understand, listen, and believe. All of this just ended up with me thinking about how I will ultimately die. ***** is a scary thing, and I have always been uneasy when it comes to *****. Grandfather dying this past January was my first experience of losing someone I knew who was close and in my life. I couldn't even grieve properly since Dad wouldn't let me visit him in the hospital or say goodbye to him when he passed. I understood that his grieving was different and that of course it hurt him more because that was his father, but I wish I could've said goodbye. He was my family too. I used to be afraid of *****. I was so terrified of it, knowing that one day, I will cease to exist and that one day, no one will know who I am. But I'm not as afraid of that anymore. I'm afraid of what comes after, if anything. I question whether heaven and hell are a thing, if purgatory exists, if this is all just a simulation. Will I be able to watch over my loved ones? Will I be reincarnated with no memory of who I was before? The life I have now will one day be meaningless and what I do in the present time will be forgotten soon enough. People always make life seem so meaningful; and it is, sometimes. I enjoy life. It's a beautiful thing. I don't hate it, even when times are dark and things just happen to go wrong at every turn. I don't hate it. I enjoy the little things in life, the happy moments, the beautiful scenery. I enjoy life more than I hate it. And that's what's so scary. One day, maybe tomorrow, it'll all be gone within the blink of an eye. That thought is a constant reminder to myself to keep living every day as if it were my last, to not hold the useless grudges that I try to hold onto, because at any second, my life could end in an instant and those grudges will stay for eternity for no **** reason. Tell the people you love that you love them. Be mad at whatever you need to be mad at, but don't hold that for too long; process the emotions, but get through them too. Time is starting to go by so fast, but maybe it's just me. This past month has zoomed by so quickly, this year even. I can't believe that it was January when things were all fine. March 13th rolls around and suddenly I'm out of school in my senior year of high school and I never returned. I was in quarantine for the next couple of months, hardly seeing anyone, going insane in my room alone. And then August comes, and suddenly I'm in college working on my degree. In a blink of an eye, it's December; I'm in my apartment on campus with my best friends, about to start a new job up here too. And this is what life is. It seems so slow and then it just exponentially speeds up and you wonder where the time went. In a blink of an eye, I'll be in med school, out of college, living with whoever. I want to make my life meaningful. I feel like I am right now, but I want more. I want more moments, I want more emotions, I want more memories. I want to document it all so that maybe someday, someone else will find my documentations and read them, going through all the moments that I once lived. I want to remind someone that life isn't all that bad, that it isn't as hopeless and useless as some may think it is. I'm terrified of what may come, but there's only so much I can control. I wonder how you're doing on your side right now. Sending this 5 years into the future. You should be 23 right now, out of college, maybe in med school working towards your surgical residency. Who are your best friends? Are Christian and Ashiaya still in your life? How's Aiden? Where's Izzy right now? Have you talked to Mom and Dad? Has Grandma passed too? What happened during Biden's presidency or did he die during it? Is COVID still in the world? Do we still have to wear masks everywhere we go?