A letter from Jul 21, 2025

Dear future Me, we had to write a letter to our younger selves. This is that letter. When you look into the stars, searching for all that is and will be, know that I forgive you. Know that I understand though I know you don't think I do. Know that I love you. Spring, the warm breeze starts to stir in the air, but eludes our life. Learning not only to live in this new world, but to exist distantly from society. Freedom. Confinement. Sorrow. Summer, heat seethes over the skyline. Trapped and oppressed, promised freedom only to be denied. Acceptance. Misery. Silence. Fall. Suddenly and without warning, things begin to change like turning on to a wrong road that leads into a dead end. Innocent. Unknowing. Excited. Winter. Though no snow touches the ground, the harshness of winter does not waste its presence. The distant smell of a sterile room. Our favorite color turned sour and resentful. Confusion. Hostility. Remorse. Spring. It hasn’t set in yet, the weight of it all. Questions unasked. Concerns unvoiced. Regret seeping through. No. Push it down, push it away. Breathe. Just, breathe. Summer. Bittersweet relief. Realization. Panic. Disaster. Room after room floods our memory but it’s all a blur. Something so clear in the moment has turned unrecognizable in memory. Regret. Remorse. It doesn’t stop. Safe momentarily but fighting every instinct to run, to fight, to escape. It’s your fault. It’s our fault. Fall. Surely familiarity will bring comfort. Instead, it only makes it worse. Pretending nothing happened, pretending you are fixed. Anger. Repression. Forget. Remember. Forget. Remember. Repeat. Winter. Soft songs of celebration and joy. Of family. Of friends. But these songs don't play. At least, not where you can hear them. Surrounded by strangers. Surrounded by empathy. Surrounded by remorse. Forget. Remember. Forget. Remember. Stop, you are safe. Spring. Safe, we are safe. We are never safe. Room after room after room. Again and again, disappointment shifts across faces. False empathy, anger, violence. Shame. It is not your fault, and yet, it is. Summer. Breathe, relax. A strange sense of calm, but a deeper set panic. It is only a matter of time. You will fall. You will fail. Fall is synonymous with failure. You promised. You shouldn’t have promised. New rules and regulations cause stress, but forced clarity. Coping, but not well enough. Home, but very much not. Three months. Just three months. It won’t be that bad. It wasn’t that bad. Winter no longer holds feelings of happy memories. Every cozy sweater causes panic. Every knowing face acts like you will break. Will you break? You can’t, not yet. Hold it together. You have to hold it together. Spring. Anger, Deceit, Explanations, Loss. Once surrounded by people, you are alone. Bury yourself in work. Devote everything you have into this. It is the only way you will survive. Pour your soul, your heart, every ounce of your being into this or you will not survive. Just hold on. You have to hold it together. Summer. The work doesn’t stop. Find every single minute of silence, of freedom, and fill it. Free time means more time for things to creep in. Things do creep in, we cope. We can relax when we are dead. For now, we can’t stop working. Fall. Determination. Focus. Praise. Success. And yet, lonely. The time spent has not allowed for any seeds of friendship to grow here. Walk alone through the halls, head down. Hide in long-sleeves and late nights. We will make it. We have to make it. Winter. Bury your head into work. Drill equations through christmas. They see someone who is fixed. We know we will never be fixed. We know there is nothing we can do about it. We are barely holding on. Just hold on. We have to keep it together. Spring. Structure. Structure will fill this void. Every minute, every hour planned out. The stress is too much, but if you stop then bad things will happen. If you stop they will come back. They will take you. You do not want to be taken. Head down, focus, work, succeed. Summer. Freedom, but unlike ever before. The realization that no one controls me. Where others see relief, I fear. I am not allowed to show that I fear. Answer with confidence, work long hours, hide behind schedules and responsibilities. *Deep Breath* When writing this, I asked myself what message I wanted to deliver. Did I want to be inspiring, self deprecating, funny? I decided to just let the words flow and see what happened. What resulted, surprisingly, was my story. Broken and intentionally vague, but still mine. Knowing where they are, where they are about to be, what they are about to face. If I could talk to my younger self: I would hug them, tell them I love them, and that I understand. I would let them make the same mistakes, the same reckless choices. I know that there is no stopping them. I know there is no way to make them listen and understand. So I would hug them and tell them that I understand that they are going to do what they want and there is nothing I can do about it. I would forgive them. I wish I could tell them not to do the dumb things. I wish I could tell them that they would regret it. However, I know in those moments I understood. I knew my older self would likely despise me for the choices I made and wish I didn’t. But I knew they would understand. I knew the consequences, I made the choice. Earlier in the letter I mentioned a rule. The rule is that I don’t make promises for the future and I don’t apologize for the past. I will not promise to be better, to change. I never expected my younger self to apologise to my older self. And they never have or will, not even in memory. But I forgive you.