A letter from February 8th, 2021

Dear Future Me, Heyyyy! What's up? I guess that's rhetorical. I hope well. It's insane to think that if you are actually reading this 5 years from now, you will be finishing your final semester in college. Geez 23 years old. Wow. Or maybe you need a bit longer to graduate. Or maybe you aren't in college anymore (maybe those AP credits did us some good hahaha). Either way, things must be different. I wonder how you will remember where I am right now--with the rosy lens of nostalgia or with gratitude that these days are long gone. Maybe a little bit of both. What's amazing to me is that you and I are the same, with only the distance of time between us. What separates us is a series of what for you are memories and what for me are the future. Probably a lot of pain, tears, and stress, but I hope so much more joy, love, and tiny moments of beauty makes all that pain and stress worth it. Crap I'm gonna get emotional this is so dumb. I know you are me but in a way you aren't. Like I'm a thing of the past right? To both of us, the 5-year-old version of us doesn't exist anymore, so in that same way, I don't exist anymore. I forget how many years it takes but eventually, all of your skin and cells will replace themselves and from a cellular point of view, you will be a different person from me. Do me a favor, would you? Go eat at your favorite restaurant when it is absolutely packed, go to a concert or party and scream and mosh and all that. If you go home for the summer, please go to a cubs game for a night game. Eat an overpriced hotdog and take the train back. Take the train back as soon as the game is over so it is overflowing with cubs fans. I hope the cubs won so you can experience that mutual feeling of excitement and giddiness. And then from the train station drive home and blast a song and sing the lyrics at the top of your lungs and cry. Cry for me. Cry for the past and the present and future. Cry for the pain and the beauty in the world. For all of those who have entered your life and for those who have left it, as well as the billions of people you will never meet. I bet this is not what you were expecting to read when you opened up your email, I don't know what kind of a mess of an email this is or what you should do from here. This is just what I had to write today, so, yeah. I love you. I hope you love yourself. I hope you learned to love yourself. I'm working on it. Promise me you'll work on it too, okay? Thanks. Remember me, in my room on a cold, snowy February afternoon, and remember you aren't alone. Love, Me