A letter from Jul 31, 2023

heyy futureme!! so rn im sitting on the soccer chair from my childhood that has been in my room for months now. but today is only the second time i decide to sit on it. and its so comfy??? for a chair meant for toddlers in the corner of my room wedged between my piano collecting dust and my backpack with a cookie from the beginning of summer rotting in there, it is my new favorite place to sit. which is a pretty thematic metaphor for how this summer is going and can be summed up into five words: i don't want to grow up. I've always been a nostalgic person. I keep every birthday card I've ever received in a gift bag tucked away into my closet, but not so inaccessible that I can't read them whenever I feel lonely. Both my freshman and sophomore years of high school are carefully organized into 12.5 by 4 inch boxes-- which my mom impulse bought from Target in 2016 and never used. My childish love for celebrities who will never know my name has only waned, and I am sure it will never disappear. After all, every time I see a picture of Sandra Oh on my pinterest feed, I still save it to the folder I made in eighth grade. But recently, rather than feeling like a warm, bittersweet hug from the past, my nostalgia feels all-consuming and terrifying. Instead of looking forward to the future and keeping nostalgia close by for comfort, like my checkered safety blanket or the cell phone number of a close friend, it's like the nostalgia has reigned out of control and has clouded any hope I had towards the future. It forces me to turn completely towards the past (something I haven't done in years; I'm used to sidestepping towards the future but never walking backwards) and constantly be stuck in a cycle of only appreciating special moments after the fact. I avoid any discussion of college and career, even though I have known what I want to do with my life since I was in fourth grade watching the presidential debates with my dad. And while I am turned around facing every part of my childhood I have mourned this summer, I can't help but notice people sprint past me. People I was once leaps ahead of are finally getting their **** together because "it's the most important year of high school," a familiar phrase that every person in my life has been reminding me of. As I stay in my room and wallow with ICU by Phoebe Bridgers in the background, my friends are at their internships, or studying for the SATs, or at the very least hanging out with people and keeping some semblance of their social life. I don't know how they do it. It's gotten better recently. I cleaned my room, started my summer reading again, and now I'm writing this letter. I've always prided on my ability to cope well in times of stress and hopelessness. But this is the most stressed and hopeless I've ever felt, and this time it's not even because of something significant. After all, every human older than me today has experienced this phase in their lives, and they seem to have gotten past it fine. But then I see the occasional Tiktok where an older lady is interviewed on the street, and she says that she still feels 16 in her mind. As comforting as that would be, I would hate for that to happen to me. I want to embrace every new chapter in my life, and I want to feel the age that I am. So while I may be writing this just to find some way to put to words what I am feeling, I just want to know one thing. Did it ever get better? p.s. sending this on exam week for a better distraction than tiktok or whatever show you're watching rn :)