A letter from January 11th, 2021

Dear future self, right now you have the hopes and dreams to be an actress. Or some sort of sports manager. You hate how easily you let people hurt you and get to you. You sometimes don’t like the way you look or feel. You hate that you cry a lot. You talk a lot and criticize yourself over the smallest things. Sometimes at night you’ll write your feelings out on paper and then tear it up so that no one ever finds it, but if you like the way you wrote it you’ll keep it and hide it somewhere. You love that you try to be happy and that when you are happy you giggle a lot. You are depressed and have anxiety. That probably, most likely won’t ever change. You love football and wrestling. Well….you love watching them and helping out the team. You easily get attached to people and you shouldn’t. You live in a 3 bedroom house with your parents and little brother. Your older sister and her boyfriend live in the basement and your nephew is due soon. You work at Hy-Vee and really enjoy it for some odd reason. You love to go to Worlds Of Fun. You really want a tattoo. You like Fall Out Boy, Twenty One Pilots, and lots of other bands. Your favorite show is Friends. You are a football and wrestling manager. You used to dance but then you moved. You go to Walmart and Scheels and Ikea and do stupid stuff with your friends. You drive around and listen to music and get food because your friends always want food. You have 3 siblings. One aunt on your dad’s side. One aunt on your mom’s side and your aunt's husband and your two cousins. They live in colorado. Don’t even get into the cousin’s on your dad’s side it’s a lot to explain. You’re looking forward to growing as a person. You’re dreading graduation even though it’s two years away. Your fears for the world are being financially stable and being able to have something. You want to make people proud even if that means hurting yourself. You hope to get married and create a beautiful family and be able to provide for my family and keep everyone safe. You want to be able to have a stable job that makes you happy. Words of Wisdom: Don’t lose yourself. You’re strong deep down you just don’t let it show. You can do whatever you want to. Don’t be scared, take chances. Find yourself within your surroundings. Find new surroundings. Be brave and positive. Stay happy but don’t get hurt. Which with you is hard to do because you somehow seem to always be hurt but you’ll get through it and learn to be the best you can be and one day you’ll finally learn to control yourself. You’ll learn to love yourself I promise.