A letter from Nov 05, 2024

To any FutureMe user reading this with a less-than-perfect home life, this is for you, too. This is a bit late that I'm writing this because I've already been living in Germany for 2 months. Better late than never? Even in this short time, my life has completely changed. I feel I am at my happiest right now, though there are some major issues back home. "I thought about what it would be like to live and integrate with a new family. Nothing could have prepared me for how different it would be to what I had expected." - My website I have the most incredible host family. Really, they are everything I have ever wanted in a family. It feels wrong to even consider them just my 'host family' when they have accepted me as one of their own and I feel like I have lived with them my entire life. I am safe when I am with them. All of my problems seem smaller. I have always wished for a different mother. I cannot tell you how much I needed it. For obvious reasons, I thought that it would be impossible. I would simply have to accept my situation and get through life dealing with the mother I was given, even though it hurt me so much. But I did. I accepted it. So imagine now, by some miracle of chance, my wish came true. And already, she has changed the very fabric of my being. She is the most caring, most patient, most understanding, most intelligent person I have ever met. She knows about my situation back home-they all know-and she is helping me get through it. But I could forget about my real family. Many times I do. I hold so much buried resentment for them, especially my father, who over the course of my life, has been nothing but a bystander to the ways my mother treated me and my siblings. I always wondered why I had a feeling of deep, burning hatred for my father because I had seen only my mother as the enemy. Now I realize it's because he is really no better than her. Right so anyway!!! I am currently trying to convince my little brother that staying with my father full time IS an option and he does not have to be forced to live in an unsafe situation. He is scared, as am I, that my mother will become suicidal if she doesn't have my brother in her custody anymore. I spoke with him today, actually, and he said that our mother recently had the worst road rage incident that he's ever witnessed from her. That really scared me. I also know that our mother is abusing hard drugs, which makes this all so much scarier. What I want to know, Future Me, is what happens? Is he still living with her, or did we finally stand up to her (hopefully with our fathers help, though it's looking bleak right now) and is he now safe and out of her grasp? You will be receiving this letter the day we return, so you won't have had much time to see what home is like, but I hope you are safe. I also hope that this situation is not forgotten this time, like every. other. time. before. In lighter news, my host parents are both musicians, so naturally, music has become a larger part of life since coming here. I used to play piano and violin but I gave those up a long time ago. Back home, I wanted to start learning how to play the guitar but I was too embarrassed to practice in my house where other people could hear me. That's not a problem here! Mostly because there is a sound proof music studio in the basement, but also because literally no one cares here. So somehow I ended up playing the drums, but I still really want to learn the guitar!!! I made a playlist on spotify of songs I want to learn on either drums or guitar. Please tell me you've learned at least one song!!!! I know you also wanted to carve little wooden birds. Of course, you tried once already and within the first minute you had already cut yourself. But you're in Germany, you can do anything you want! I wanna know what other hobbies you've picked up. Pottery? Our Deutsche Mama wants to do that with us. And how is your website going? Maybe you've completely forgotten about it because we really never use it, but maybe one day you got bored and decided to pick up webmastery again. How is your hair looking? It should be completely blonde by now, right? We're going to get a haircut soon to make it sort of a bob cut, we've had the same grown-out wolf-cut for like, 3 years at this point! I am excited to see how your style has changed, as well. Especially because it was so recent that we stopped with well... you know what... har har. Obligatory question about your language skills: Right now it's a bit complicated because I feel like every time someone tries to speak to me in German they somehow use only words that I have literally never heard of in my life. But in my private lessons I am able to understand my teacher and converse with her for a full hour, so that counts for something, right??? I have obviously improved a lot since I got here, even though I only speak English to my friends and host family. (Yeah, how did we end up with an American host family?) The sentence structure and vocabulary is comfortably situated in my brain. Formal lessons are definitely helping as well. I have no doubt that you'll be pleasantly secure in your German skills by the end of the year. The only thing I really miss is Pearl. Pearl.... and being able to understand people talking to me. I keep having dreams that I return home for just a day or two and I'm rushing to see all my friends and basking in the ease of being in an English-speaking country. But man, I miss Pearl. She is really going through it right now!!! I try to help her but it is very difficult when I am so far away. I hope she knows I'll always be there for her. I've only said it 1000 times!! I wonder if she's still dating her boyfriend by the time I come back. To be honest, I do not like him. From what I hear, he is a terrible influence on her. They are BOTH terrible influences on eachother. Things happening in the world right now: ELECTION DAY WAS YESTERDAY. Right now, it looks to me like Trump is going to win. He has 267 electoral votes, while Harris only has 224. Everyone is freaking out over it but honestly I cannot bring myself to care. I'm just not the type of person to get worried about things that MIGHT happen. This year there were like three assasination attempts on Donald Trump. Joe Biden dropped out of the race. Mr. Beast almost got sued? I really have not been keeping up with that though, I think it all blew over in the end. Jojo Siwa is still embarrassing herself on the internet. Arcane S2 is going to come out this month. Chappel Roan is the newest big pop star. Also the freaking CharlieXCX Brat album made everyone go crazy for a while. Some other things that I did not care to find out more about was the Kendrick vs. Drake drama and the Olympics with the disappointing breakdancing performance. And apparently Scallion is in her evil era??? Honestly this year was not that interesting. Well, in comparison to previous years. I think someone who didn't experience 2020 would consider this a crazy year but we are all just so desensitized at this point. I'm still coastin' along, I guess. Writing this made me a bit sad. It's getting colder and colder every day here, and the days shorter and shorter. I've yet to see my first snowfall in Germany, which I await with excitement. I know I'll send this letter and days later think of something really important that I forgot to mention, but such is life. I can always write an update half-way through the year. No one is telling me how many letters I can write! All of this to say, risking it all to go on an exchange program on the other side of the planet was quite possibly the best decision I've ever made and I know I will be changed forever because of it. (Even if my college fund is now completely devastated :P )