A letter from May 31, 2023

Dear FutureMe, Hey. What's up. Loser. We have to do this email thing for English class, and we have to write a dumb 500 word thing about our "gifts" or whatever. Mrs. Luchesse loves stupid sentimental flowery phrases like "discovering our gifts" and "building our classroom community" and stuff. Not something I'm missing about leaving for the summer. Honestly, there isn't much that I'm going to miss. I could stand leaving all the ******** in my grade behind forever, honestly. The teachers I can bear parting with, too. I just had my last class with Mr. Fay earlier today. Good riddance. His classes always made me anxiety-nauseous. The only teacher I like is Mr. Clark, but I'm going to have him again next year. Libby isn't going to be with me in Orchestra because of her double math schedule thing, which I'm not sure how to feel about. I'll survive it, I'm sure, but I think I might feel lonely. I've considered auditioning for Chamber so I could be with Charlie, but I don't think I'm good enough to join. I wonder how many people Mr. Clark has to reject from Chamber orchestra. Speaking of Libby, our friendship is still going strong. And I bet that unless something drastic happens, that probably won't have changed for you. It would be our 10-year friend-aversary. Man, that's a long time. Jesus. Time for a break year, haha. On the other side of the spectrum, Lyn is leaving us in 10 days. She's totally stopped speaking to everyone except for Kai now. I should feel more sad, I think. Mostly, I just feel pissed at the way she's totally ignoring us all. She didn't even come to my birthday party. Like, what the hell, dude? I guess she doesn't care about us as much as I thought she did. I'm glad she's going. I don't want to see her ever again. My other friends include Joy, Lilliana, Kai (kinda?), and, well. That's about it. But I'm going to make more, I swear. Next year. I promise. I don't think my friendship with Joy is going to last. Or my friendship with Kai. Lilliana might survive. I don't know. Hypothesizing about the future is kind of pointless if you ask me. It's not like thinking about what will happen can change it. Whatever. I've been doing drumming for about half a year now. I think I'm doing pretty good so far, even though practicing is ridiculously boring with only a practice pad. I'm trying to convince my mom to get me a full kit. So far it's a pretty hard "maybe". She says she'll think about it if I stick with it. I keep saying I will, but I don't know if she believes me. You better stick with it! I'm counting on you. A drum set is on the line. I'm just starting to learn how to roller skate, too. I want to do derby. I've already dragged my parents to 2 games, and they seem dubiously on board with the whole thing. My current plan for a derby name is Extraterrorestrial. Alien themed. Very cool. Also the name of a defunct Disney World ride, apparently, which in my opinion adds to the cool points. I'm not going to ask you any questions or anything. If you're anything like me, you're not going to want to answer them, so I just won't. I don't know who you are, because I don't know how I'm going to end up. Whoever you are, I hope you're happy, at least. You could give me that. I don't think I'm very happy right now. I'm hoping that will change. Anyways, here's the English project thing I did. You probably don't remember what I wrote. I know I wouldn't. Honestly, that's the only reason I'm including it. You're probably curious. Just a warning, it's really bad. I *********** a bunch in order to reach the 500-word minimum. Whatever. Here you go. DEAR FUTURE ME; The most important "gifts" of my Freshman year have been all of the new friendships I've made and the old ones that I've strengthened the bonds of. I believe that my friendships have given me a chance to experience high school in a different way than if I did not have them. They have allowed me to have a fuller experience, a happier experience, of this year, in ways that made all the difference. Although my relationships have also caused conflict and distress to the parties involved, I believe that my friends have made this school a better place for me and that I have made this school a better place for them. I have discovered that the most important thing to me is nurturing and caring for these relationships in invaluable and memorable ways. My friends truly make me a better person and I am indescribably lucky to have people who care about me. I do not know how this year would've been without those people. Another gift that I discovered this year is the ability to be resilient. I believe that I inherited this trait from my mother, who has always taught me to be strong in the face of adversity and how to always pick yourself back up again. There were many challenges that I faced this year, including social, academic, and emotional struggles, however, I always found myself pushing forward in spite of it all. Whenever I had a bad day, I would always tell myself that there was always a tomorrow. Nothing is impossible, no matter how hopeless it feels. It is possible to move forward. Look at me, I survived my Freshman year of high school! And if you're reading this right now, it means you survived your Sophomore, Junior, and Senior years as well. Despite of all of the challenges you faced in all those years, you did it. You survived. That's pretty great. The third and final important "gift" of my Freshman year is the gift of community. Not only the community of Highland Park, but the Highland Park High School community, the communities of all of my classes, the communities of my extracurriculars, and the communities I have of friends online and in real life. A web of people to lean back on when times are hard has been an invaluable part of my experience in high school so far, and I believe that part of the resilience that I described comes from knowing that there are people that understand and care about me. The ability to see yourself in others and feel a connection to not just one, but a whole bunch of people on even a surface level, but often on a deeper level as well, has helped me immensely. I hope you never lose your communities. I hope you never stop having people who care about you. I hope you never stop caring about people. I hope that you can always have friends, always have resilience, always repair yourself when it hurts to get up in the morning, and always know that somewhere out there there are people who love you. I know that I do.