happy 23rd birthday !!

dear future me, this is one-year-ago you! writing from her 22nd birthday to wish you a happy 23rd birthday! i hope your birthday is happy and you can spend the day filling your cup :) i also hope you'll be eating yummy food this birthday must feel crazy. 23 in nyc. i hope it feels good, but trust that i understand what it's like to feel weird on your birthday. for me, i don't know what it is. maybe its the result of bottling emotions up and them finally spilling over. maybe its realizing im aging and confronting that i'll be leaving my home for 22 years soon. maybe its just part of becoming an adult where your birthday gets less special. to that, i say your birthday regardless of how you celebrate it or how people treat you is special. taking time to write a letter to yourself, straighten your hair, grab a dessert freebie, sleep in, watch a movie with wine, are all special things. your birthday is special because you make it special for yourself. for my 22nd birthday, i am so loved! i got dinner with my friends yesterday, will see my family for dinner tonight and watch a movie with my friends, doing a bunch of stuff with family this weekend. i feel weird in the moment but i hope i look back positively. i think maybe this is just sleep deprivation and exhaustion catching up with me. exhaustion takes form in weird ways. it's such a funny point of life we're in. this feels like the ultimate test for some reason, how i transition into real adulthood. what kind of adult will i be? the drinker or the runner? will i stay in nyc or will i move out into suburbia? will i hate or love the cold? will i get married in 2 years or never? will i have kids in 5 years or 15 (again, or never)? what will i do with my life now that i have the paths in front of me? or will the paths freak me out and ill stay as small as possible? i'm sure none of this is comforting for you. let's tell you what was going on on your birthday one year ago. the top article on the newyorktimes website is headlined "How Americans Feel About the Election: Anxious and Scared". honestly, true that. this year, i attended my first presidential rally and voted in my first presidential election! four years ago, i was a much better civic citizen than i am now (this is a bad admission but i never volunteered for the harris campaign). still, i am quite nervous for this election. i really don't want to have to be a woman, person of color, and taxpayer under a trump administration. i would love to be a young woman when the first woman president takes office. america is quite backwards at times. i hope that soon the ******** in palestine is over as well, it's heartbreaking to see that it has been going on for so long. this election is just so disheartening. i cannot believe someone like donald trump has been given this platform. someone so openly racist and ****** has been elevated by half of this country. it is sick. on a lighter note, what else is going on? i am the president of PERIOD and it's really nice to see how motivated people are, but it's also such a big responsability. still though i like being able to do stuff like this while i can. i'm in an economic development class and health economics class, both of which i find interesting. i'm really curious to see what kind of work i do in the future. i'm running a 5k in december with charisma so i'm trying to get better at running now and it's been really satisfying to see myself gradually improving. when i got my return offer i got a balayage and by now all the red has washed out but it's left a bleach brown type tone which i like. i don't know, life is in a good place. i feel like i'm in a weird spot, just waiting for my next steps (which is where you're at). i have not even begun to plan out what i'm going to spend my four months of summer doing or where i'll be living in a year. i hope you got it all figured out, haha! for your 23rd, i know it must be hard being away (or maybe you treated yourself and bought a flight home or maybe you're not even in new york city and the future isn't predictable. maybe you're struggling with the cold right now and that's so fair (so you should treat yourself to a hot chocolate and portable heater for your bday). i have to say, i'm pretty excited to be where you are right now. i saw a reel of central park earlier and i'm so excited to see how it looks like in the fall. i also saw videos of the nyc marathon and people's signs were really funny. i want to eat at xian famous foods again. i also want to go on a walk around columbia to get a flashback to sophomore summer. i want to just go on a hot girl walk around soho and people watch at washington square park. i want to smoke legal weed and go to happy hours with friends from work. i want to make weekend trips to visit friends from college. i want to see brooklyn in tampa. i want to run along that park thats along the manhattan coastline. i want to be able to do longer distances and run a 10k at some point. there's so much i'm looking forward to. obviously a lot i'll miss, but that's for another letter. i wish you the best bday ever. i love you so much and i hope you realized that you are loved. i hope you have a good day, that 23 treats you well (and for my sake that 22 treated you well). i hope aging isnt freaking you out (23 is such an old number). i hope you can do something fun and/or peaceful today or sometime soon! i hope you're happy and you feel good about where your life is at. call home if you haven't yet! i love you, sejal