A letter from May 4th, 2022

Hi, future me! How are you right now? Yes, I actually want you to answer that yourself. I hope this letter comes to you as a nice surprise, or maybe you remembered that this was coming and have been waiting in much anticipation. I know I do when waiting to read my yearly Christmas letters currently. By the way, do you still do those? I hope you do they are a lot of fun, and they honestly are fun to read. If not, maybe you should start doing those again. Anyways, I am currently writing this for a school project in Dr. Taylor's class. It is currently 8:44 pm on 5/4/2022. I can’t promise I’m writing this all on the same day but at least you understand the general time period this is coming from. First, let’s start out with what has happened so far this year so you can have some fun reflecting back on all the things that at this point you have probably forgotten about like we tend to do. At the beginning of this school year, we were just coming out of the main part of COVID-19, which by the way just to remind you sucked! Anyways, since I hadn’t seen people in forever, it was quite nice to be back in school and see my friends again. At this point, Ashlyn had already moved away so now I had started hanging out with Emerson and Elina at school because they were both in most of my classes. Then one thing led to another and *boom* ceee was made. Which consists of Elina, Ema, Emerson, and me if you forgot. Which I hope you didn’t because I do truly hope that we are still friends. That is something that I am extremely worried about because Emerson isn’t going to Hume Fogg with us and then Elina, Ema, and I aren’t really taking a lot of the same classes. Which I just realized could be false and we might have IM2, Biology?, and such together, but what I do know is that we won’t be in band together anymore which really sucks because I think that is one of the main things that we bond over sometimes. Though I think that we also are really good friends together because I always have so much fun when we hang out. I was just going back and correcting my spelling errors and it tried to tell me that Ema was spelled wrong. Anyways, next point, which I don’t really know what to continue to. I could explain everything that was different because of Covid. Like band where we had to wear face shields and the band sucked because none of us had been playing for, like, a whole entire year. Actually, let's talk about band because right now it is annoying me! I really truly think our band sucks, still at the end of the year. Now I understand that the 7th graders got their 5th-grade year cut short but by that point, they should have at least been able to learn the basics. Yet they still don’t seem to know what they are doing, which is so stupid because it is now the end of the year and I feel like they should have been able to grow and fix themselves but nooo. We still have flutes who play while sitting crisscross or while sitting back slouched in their chairs. And if you were wondering or forgot I’m 3rd chair Elina is 2nd and Asher is 1st Well somehow, I got it stuck in tiny writing .-. There we go, I fixed it. I meant to also mention that Ema is 5th chair before I got it stuck. So, there is my account with band. OH! How could I forget that the first band trip I’m ever going on is this Friday. Which, by the way, I am definitely salty about the fact that I didn’t get to go on one my 6th or 7th grade years but whatever. I am so excited to go on this trip I hope that I have a lot of fun. Though they may not be letting us take our phones into Dollywood which I find stupid, but you know let’s just hope they decide to let us bring in our phones. Okay, let’s move on from school stuff because I think mentioning some other stuff is a good idea. Let’s start with my interests. I started the year watching stuff that was a part of the DreamSMP fandom. Don’t worry I have moved on past that. I do understand though why I got so interested in that fandom. I think it was really nice to watch these people that made me laugh and have fun throughout quarantine which was a worse time for my mental health. I think at that time I was mildly depressed because a lot of my energy and liveliness comes from hanging around with my friends and throughout that time, I wasn’t able to hang out with my friends. And then halfway through the 2020 school year, one of my best friends (Ashlyn) who was the one I talked to mostly moved away and I didn’t talk to her as much. However now I definitely feel much better, not the best, but better, and that it was the most I wish to hope for at this time. That certainly took a turn so back on track, interests! I did write a lot concerning stuff with the DreamSMP, which as cringey as it was, I’m glad I started writing because I do truly enjoy it. I started getting farther away from the DreamSMP fandom, I don’t really know what I was watching during that time, but I know that it wasn’t as much DreamSMP related. Eventually, I said I need to try something new, so I started an anime. It was the Disastrous Life of Saiki K. I really enjoyed that so then I continued to watch anime and got more into the fandoms of the animes I was watching. Here’s a list if you wanted one: The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. (and the second one), Demon Slayer (so far only up to the Entertainment Distract Arc because that’s all that’s out), Blue Exorcist, started HunterxHunter but didn’t finish, Yuri! On Ice, Black Butler (most of the first season and the circus part), currently I'm in the middle of watching Seraph of the End and Edens World. Sadly, I have not been able to start any manga though I want to go to the library soon to try and get the Seraph of the End manga. Aside from the shows I have been watching I have some games that I am playing. The first one is Cookie Run Kingdom, which I hope you remember because I am not going all into detail about Cookie Run Kingdom. However, there was a new update that I just got today, and I have barely had time to look through it so that will be fun to do after this! If you’re wondering, it’s the update where there’s that one new cookie who is like a super epic or something. I don’t know the cookie’s name, but I think it has something to do with some cream, and he looks super regal and fancy. I don’t know how else to describe it. Anyways, that’s about all I have on Cookie Run Kingdom because I have been hyper-focused on another game at the current moment. Genshin Impact. If you want some info on where I’m at in Genshin, I’m on Adventure Rank 35, I have yet to do the challenge so I can go up from there because I tried once and failed the timer challenge part and then had to go eat and so I said let me level up my characters. Let’s see what else, so I just finished all the Inazuma quests and have yet to start the chasm quest. (By the way, Sumeru and Fontaine, aren’t out yet which saddens me but that’s not the point of this.) In terms of characters, I have my main team right now consists of Lisa, Barbra, Chongyun, and Xiangling. That’s how you spell her name I’m pretty sure. The only 5-star character I have aside from Traveller (Aether by the way) is Ayato who I just got like a week ago. But I have Noelle, Thoma, Diona, rock and roll girl, opera girl, Amber, Kaeya(Grammarly is trying to correct this to Katya), Sucrose, and probably some more I am forgetting. I haven’t really built any characters or anything like that because I have been focused on playing the story mode and honestly my characters already deal enough damage to get by, so I don’t see the point. Another big thing I think I should talk about is how much I’ve grown over the year. I have been able to gain more confidence and even now wear very different clothes. But I am so glad I do because these make me so much happier than the clothes I used to wear. If you’re wondering what style I’m talking about I literally heard someone explain so good the other day, they said “the T-shirt over the button up and with the chains”. Which is basically what it is. I do hope to expand on this wardrobe of mine with more outfits, but I really am enjoying what I have now. I still can’t get over the fact that I wear these outfits to school on a regular basis. I remember when I first put together an outfit with this sort of style and I was so afraid to wear it to school because I thought others might make fun of me or something, but I did it anyway and now when I get new clothes, I’m not afraid to wear them to school because I know that as long as they make me happy that’s all that matters. I could list hundreds of different examples of how I’ve grown so much more confident with myself and how I look and how I feel. Though even now there are still so many things that I want to “fix” about myself. I really want to look different, like my thighs and calves are so thick and fat and I want them gone and my fingers which are pudgy and small, I want those to be different too. And don’t even get me started on my stomach area which is far too fat and chubby. Then there’s my hair which doesn't look good no matter how I style it. I’m considering getting bangs of some sort because maybe those will help me look better. I’ve tried so many ******* times to start a new routine to work out or eat better or literally anything that might help me look how I want but like I just can’t do it and it makes me so frustrated. I have really tried to change myself and look how I want, and I know I’m slowly making progress and I hope that maybe while you are reading this you might be able to look at your body and say, “yes, I do like how I look” and you know, even if you can’t that’s okay. Maybe it’s still that I don’t quite like how I look but I do like how I dress and that makes me happy and then you know what that’s so much progress just getting there so celebrate that instead of continuing to try and shape yourself into something that you might not be able to achieve. Looking back at that I think I might cut that part out when I turn it into Dr, Taylor but I will leave it in for you to read. Honestly, I think that may be one of the first times I have ever vented, to someone. And thinking that someone is literally myself so right now I’m literally venting to nothing is quite sad, because that means I don’t have enough strength to put my problems out there for other people to help me with. Now that I think about it, I really haven’t mentioned anything about my future or what I want it to look like or anything like that. On our paper, it says we are supposed to write stuff about that too. But I find that quite stupid. These are the questions: - What are your goals for high school? - How do you want things to be with your friends? With your grades? With your activities and accomplishments? Do you plan to play a sport, join a club, get a driver's license, have a job, etc.? - What do you envision success to look like for you? - What do you think you will be like as a senior in high school? What do you think your interests, hobbies, and activities will be when you are a senior? - How do you want to feel about yourself when you graduate in 2026? I think that most of those I don’t have to answer because why should my thoughts now be relevant to how things are going with you. Which is the future for me. I know that when I was younger, and I wrote a letter to Emerson for when we turned 16, I asked a lot of questions about did this thing happen or did this thing happen. And I realize now that there is no way for me at this current time on May 4th of 2022 to get the answers to those questions I asked, and from writing my Christmas letter I just didn’t seem to enjoy reading about what I wanted to be like or how I thought I might be like. Really the part I enjoyed reading the most was the things about that past, the things that I forgot and things that it was nice to remember. Though I do think the last question is really a good question. I really hope that as you are reading this letter that I am writing to you 4 years before you are reading this letter you are happy with yourself. I really hope that out of everything that has changed the thing that has changed the most is you being happy with who you are and what you are continuing to do. I don’t know if I mentioned this already but right now, I think what I want to do when I grow up is an author and photographer (wedding photographer maybe). Maybe that will entertain you and cheer you up a bit. Right now, I can’t decide if I want to send this to you on May 5th of your year or later closer to graduation. If I send it to you on May 5th, then good luck with your exams because I assume that is happening at the moment. Because this is when Hailey’s are starting. Oh, I wonder how Hailey and everyone else in the family are doing. I don’t know if you want to do this but if you do tell them all that I love them. Like me from 2022 not you from 2026, I think. Wow, I have managed to get this to almost four pages that’s truly an accomplishment. I think that the amount it said on the paper was about 1.5-2 pages and here I am writing almost 4. So, I don’t really know how to finish this, but I want to leave with one final thing. I love you, in every way possible I truly love you and I hope that this doesn't seem too cringey, but I just think that you deserve some self-love. Which is technically what this is. On the final note that currently I have 99+ editor suggestions on word without proofreading this and then when proofreading and fixing stuff on Grammarly I still have 156 "premium" writing issues, I say goodbye at 9:59 pm on 5/4/2022.