A letter from August 02, 2025

Dear FutureMe, 
When you read this, you'll be graduating senior year of high school. And that completely terrifies me. I hope it feels more okay now. I hope you have some sort of idea of how you're going to move forward in this confusing world. Right now, things are interesting. Life has never felt this way before. Summer is almost over and I'm trying to grapple with the fact that this year is going to be full of last's. Last first day, last high school football game, last homecoming and winter formal and prom. You're going to walk out of the doors of that godforsaken building for the last time and it's bittersweet, closing a chapter that has been equal parts grueling and miserable, equal parts amazing and beautiful. I wouldn't say I've loved high school, but this past year especially has felt so significant and memorable and I'm not sure I'm quite ready to let go. I think I'm scared most by the uncertainty of it all, but if this year has taught me anything it's to take things in stride and try not to get caught up in predicting the unpredictable. 
Getting diagnosed with Type I Diabetes this past May threw me for a complete loop. I'm not even being dramatic when I say it completely changed my life, but I guess you know that. Going back to school and trying to take junior year finals when I'd freshly come off a vacation in the ICU was one of the most difficult and mentally challenging things I've ever done. I wish I would have advocated for myself stronger, because the way everything went down was unfair on me. I was staying up past midnight every single night trying to cram everything I possibly could, while also trying to adjust to my diagnosis and completely new lifestyle, and going to school every day with absurdly high blood sugars because I hadn't figured out how to control them yet. I was expected to preform to the same capabilities as my peers, when I'd lost two weeks of review time because of how utterly sick I was, and I received no support. I'm worried about going back to school after that fiasco. I made it through those last two weeks hanging on an absolute thread, running on fumes and held together by Quinn. 
Speaking of Quinn, well... as you know, that's become an absurd development in my life. I hope to God nothing's come between us by the time you're reading this because I can't stand the thought of losing him. And I don't know what to call it right now, if we're boyfriends or whatever, but it's good. It's really good. It's what I wanted for a long time, what I convinced myself I would never have. Not with him. He's become less of a lawless, puzzling hurricane and more of a soft, sometimes tangled web. It's hard to think I'll ever fully understand him, but I get him now in ways I never figured anybody would. And he gets me just the same. Sometimes I think maybe he can read my mind. Summer with him has been great-- sleepovers and trips to the river and nighttime expeditions and watching movies all curled up on the couch. He became my best friend in the spring, but I never thought summer would make him my lover. And I need to talk to him about all of this, about us, but for whatever reason it scares me. Like acknowledging everything between us breaks the fragile spell we're under. I have to do it, speak my mind, and I know that. I'm going to. Please, just don't ever let him slip through your fingers. Not after everything.
I want you to go through this next chapter of your life being unabashedly yourself. I don't want you to dim your light for anybody. And it might be scary and hard and things will feel big and impossible, but I think everybody feels that way when they're your age. Breathe. You can do this, all of it. You're exactly where you're meant to be, wherever that is. 
Don't lose yourself. Don't lose Quinn. Rule the world. Do it afraid. Good luck.