A letter from Sep 26, 2024

Dear FutureMe, Sophomore year seems to be the year of failing. Insecurity, loneliness, jealousy. You're failing so many times you can't even cry tears anymore. All you can feel is a numbness beyond worry. Everything seems to be falling apart around you. You're failing Orgo, Physics, Biology, your labs and your choir class. It seems too sickening to know that 2 months in, and you're not making any progress you said you would. You didn't get into Moc Trial. You've stopped volunteering. Your life seems to be on a spiral decline and nothing seems to be helping. You're finally showing everyone what they already knew... you're worthless. This is all what I'm thinking right now, but I want you to know it's not true. You still have two more months to turn things around. You still have time to jump up from where you've buried yourself. You must take the shovel and dig until it becomes sand in your hands too. You can't let defeat end you. You've lived this long. What gives you the right to give up now. What gives you the right to stop when you're already starting. Futureme if you're reading this right now, I want you to know you're the strongest person I know. To even be alive, to keep going, to read this letter. You need to know they were all worth something. You're worth something. Don't let the mistakes of your past stop you from moving forward. Who gives the world the right to tell you when to stop. Only you have that right. Future me I believe in you so much. I hold my dreams in your hands and make sacrifices just so you can be the best person you can be. Future me, this is me saying goodbye. This is me giving you the right to live, and the only way it's possible is if I let the person I am now die. I have to say goodbye to procrastination. I have to say goodbye to excuses. I may not ever sleep again, but that's the torture I'm willing to live through to have you be born. If this is the cycle of life, then give me the dagger. Your past self will die today, but just know she did it out of love. Good luck, future me. Define your own life now.