A letter from Nov 24, 2024

Hi! Were 16 right now and were moving away in 5 days. Youve just finished packing your room and are writing an essay of who you were at 14, prompt inspired by an American teacher who you probably will never know. You love your life, truly you do and I hope we continue to. Its our 18th today! Happy birthday love!! I hope we can continue to be who we want to be an keep finding ourselves through our own means. I hope we become a doctor and improve peoples lives, mourn with people and live a life filled with everything you wish to. Please take care of us Essay- This essay was not made for me. It was a prompt made by an American teacher whose name I will never know, for people whose lives I may never get to witness. The essay is about who we were 2 years ago. I was 14, untouched by the world and people. Breathing in the gentle kindness of youth. I cannot remember who I was, you can never remember the conversations but you will always remember the energy which flowed through you. I danced with the energy of who I wanted to be and who I could have continued to become. At 14 the world was kind, it shined with a glow we could only try to replicate. This glow fades when we reach 15 and gradually returns when we chose ourself at 16. I laughed every minute of the day, I dreamt of a teenage dream and I was the teenage dream. I loved with every crack, crevice, and split within my heart and I loved deeply. 14 was me, I lived through 14 and I had life in every single moment. You could not deny me of the youth that was promised. Two years ago I was a girl wrapped up in the power of who I was going to be. Nobody was going to pull me out of that daze, that beautiful dream, but it was a dream. A promise that could never be fulfilled within one lifetime. Life which once presented itself with gold and the promises of eternity turned into something 14 year old me could no longer understand. I changed and in turn I got sucked out of the energy of youth and spent years trying to claw my way back in. Many times I was told “there is still time” but youth slipped away so quickly and I became a whirlwind. Someone 14 year old me could not recognise and someone who I am still trying to understand. I want to stand still in the flow of time, be allowed some time to breathe infinitely and forever. I want to find what corner of the universe my downturn smile hides in, where my crinkled nose produced by laughter slipped away to. Where that love I had for life disappeared to, where is that far off dream. Is this all the price everyone has to pay to grow up? Why can we not keep our youth through our entire life, why must we scratch and bite and claw and fight to keep it? You cannot convince me youth is reserved for childhood and we spent our life wanting to go backwards. At 14 I was untouchable and I breathed with life. I know one day I will breathe again.