A letter from Nov 15th, 2021

dear kelly-anne in five years, at the time of writing this letter, you are 19. you're turning 20 soon, but you would rather not think about that right now (because it's terrifying. does getting older gets easier?). i'm sitting on my bed in my single university dorm room. i have ''my own place'' and it's great, the independence is exhilarating. but i sometimes resent myself for picking something easier, for the laziness and the indecisiveness. sometimes i catch myself daydreaming about a place that is entirely mine. where the plants thrive, the sunshine peaks through the window, the walls are covered in art, the bookshelves are about to burst and there is always lemonade in the fridge. i don't know why but this feeling of happiness reminds me of a song. i'm listening to it right now. this is the life by amy macdonald. somedays. talking about university, i finally decided on a baccalaureate in psychology. i don't know if that's for me, I'm still unsure about that. but now i like it. change the song to yoko ono by mob rich. the midterms went well (i think. i didn't receive any grades yet). we'll see where it leads. i don't have to have everything figured out, right? i hope you found what makes us vibrate with all of our atoms. or at least, something that makes us feel great. change song to *** on fire by kings of leon. i'm starting to figure things out, but at the same time it feels like i'm deconstructing. like i'm at war with who i used to be and who i'm becoming. it sounds so cathartic and freeing but it's just confusing really. i'm changing, leaving my old self bits by bits not like it's something i should get rid of, but more like shedding. it feels like a normal part of life, yet it feels like i'm the only one struggling to find a version of me i'm comfortable being. change song to sunglasses at night by corey hart. it does not feel real. not the part about me changing, but all of these new things at once. i like it. why do i feel like i should be ashamed for liking this? I've met new people, seen new things and visited new places. i've done things i have never done, nothing outrageous remember? change song to cherry wine by hozier. change song to secrets from a girl (who's seen it all) by lorde. i talked about some of them with maude. it sounded like she was surprised like i was never the kind of person to do these things. i imagine that for years i wasn't, but now that i'm on my own and free to live all of those things i never could when i was younger, it sounds criminal to let them pass. i'm living my youth in acceleration. i've spent so many times being cruel to myself, it felt revolutionary, nearly religious. i'm in the process of realizing that the real revolt is kindness to myself. i went back home last week for revision week. it's strange. i felt like a visitor in my living room, a stranger in my bedroom. it's four walls and a roof. and it's so full of memories it's about to burst, spilling into the streets and the neighbourhood. it's familiar, but it's not mine anymore. change song to a letter to my younger self by ambar lucid. change song to twin size mattress by the front bottoms. the anger and the guilt stay, inexplicably. they poison me from the inside out and take me back weeks. but it's family and it's home. it's so confusing. sometimes i wish i could just forget but i cannot forgive and how can i forget if it's such an inherently huge part of me. change song to francis forever by mitski. they always told me it was hard to leave and i never believed them. how could i, when it was all i ever dreamed? i had spent countless days daydreaming about finally being free, about having my own place and have that specific peace at the end of the journey. but in the end, they were right. leaving is hard. because you leave behind every single thing that was once familiar, the routine, the mundane. it's the stupid things you took for granted that you miss. change song to we used to wait by arcade fire. it's the possibility of reading in the hammock in the backyard on a sunny day. it's the almost clock-like consistency of the old man walking back from the pharmacy. it's the knowledge that if you turn right on this corner and walk down two blocks you'll find the local grocery store. leaving is being stripped of the mundane, abandoning the routine, the familiar and everything that made it, not home, but somewhere you knew a bit too much. i swear i won't ever look back and i keep looking back. it's so weird leaving all of this here to you. because you're my harshest critic and yet you're probably the only one to actually understand what this gibberish means and how much this really means to me. dad apologized last week. it was tuesday. it was not enough. does it feel enough now? i hope you've managed to deal with all of this. change song to lovers rock by tv girl. god i'm depressing. i have so many things to tell you and at the same time it seems pointless. i feel like i'm going insane. change song to portrait de la jeune fille en feu the soundtrack. change the song to robbers by the 1975. i feel like when i was sixteen and had this strange ugly fear that all teenage girls have : that they have some sort of evil, of monster inside them. that they are on the brink of insanity, a decision away from unleashing the ugly, cruel and somehow revolutionary part of themselves. it's like that but instead of insanity, it's confusion. it's so many things at once. it's the child i still am and the child i no longer am fighting. the contradiction at my core. it's too much for one night. my brain feels mushy. i'll come back tomorrow. it's late and i have class in the morning. I'll go to bed and sleep. or try too. insomnia is getting slightly better somehow. (??) it's been nearly two weeks. change song to pigeons by les louanges. i did not forget. i just didn't know how to tell you all those things i need to tell you. it's just a letter, but it feels like a mausoleum of all the things you felt at 19 when your childhood fades behind and adulthood is turning the corner. so please, do me a favour. remember who you were, remember this : remember stargazing with marie, flavie and florence, how the stars felt so whole, terrifying but inviting. remember driving on dirt roads with dad and éri singing your heart out, the wind in your face and your dirty toes sticking out the window. remember swimming in the cold lake in the summer heat at camp. remember the mornings in the snow and the nights around the campfire, how that night wrapped your heart in warmth in the end of an adventure. change song to j't'emmène au vent by louise attaque. remember throwing your graduation cap in the air, remember dancing with your friends at prom. remember talking about everything and nothing with léa, the joy when she came to visit. remember the pineapple he gave you. remember running in the rain, your face still wet but smiling. remember mamie and papi's house, the wet smell of the earth, the green sticky algae, the salt waters and the feel of muddy sand beneath your feet. remember laughing with luce about stupid stuff, the marshmallows with laurie, the nights playing just dance and mario kart with maude and marianne, getting iced coffee with sam. remember how proud you felt when your short story was graded "perfect". remember racing ski slopes with julie and dom, sliding through the pool with audrey-anne. change song to lady - hear my tonight by modjo. remember sla, the coudée, all those sneaky texts during online classes and the afternoon at the library with them. remember the late night zoom calls and the picnics in the park. remember when we all made t-shirts on the last day. remember ste-luce beach and bic national park. remember riding your bike with alex, jumping on the trampoline with mégane. remember hiking in the sagenay, the first drive to uni when you finally felt like your own person. change song to let me down easy by gang of youths. remember how it is to feel alive. hold on to these moments, i beg you. don't forget them. don't you dare forget them. because if you do, you forget who you are. remember everything. every detail. write it down. don't forget, record it all and live even more. i will, i'll live tales you will love reciting around campfires. promise me you'll do the same. don't let nineteen years old kelly-anne starve for more. please. please. please. i'm trusting you. make me proud. i love you.