Oh man...what a time...to be alive.
I feel old. I'm a senior in college now and have spent a lot of time thinking
about my life as a senior in high school. My life was so drastically
different four years ago but there are several parallels between then and now.
This time four years ago I was deciding where I would spent the next four years
in college. Today I'm worried about where I'll spend the rest of my life. I love Boston and I
would like to stay here but it's going to be hard. I've learned that if I want
something, I have to go after it. High school was honestly a very fun time
for me but my senior year was filled with stress, self doubt, confusion and
impending doom and I'm feeling that again. In five months I'll be able to
say "back in college," like today when I so smoothly say "back
in high school" and I'm ready for that.
But I don't want to write even an anti letter to my high school
self. I make fun of things like this. I see nonsense headlines like "A
letter to my teenage self telling me everything will be okay and boys ain't
shit and watch your back and buy those shoes and eat dessert first and what my neighbor's dog taught me about empathy." Good God, how annoying are those. I don't care about the open
letter to your third grade baseball coach and how he helped with your eating
disorder and fixed your parents' marriage. Four years ago as a senior in high
school, as much as I would have needed it, if I was handed a letter from my
future self, I would not have believed anything I said. I wouldn't have wanted to believe anything I said. Life is different now and it's the anticipation that keeps us going.
I wish I could tell my past self to keep at it, that my teenage angst
isn't cute (and still isn't! I'm working on my attitude problem!) and that it's
okay to ask for help. To just take one day at a time. I know it's hard to love
yourself when everything has been so exhausting. I wish I could keep myself
from becoming so cynical and acrimonious but at this point it's just who I am. I want to tell
myself that loving yourself is the most important job I'll ever have and I'll
learn to get better at it. I feel like it will still take a while for me to be at
peace with myself but I have time. I'm working on self love, self care and self acceptance as
much as I can, even if I can't really identify what any of those words actually
mean.
Even if I could, I wouldn't tell myself when you leave high school, shit gets real. You
will struggle, lose yourself, find yourself, betray yourself, compromise
yourself. You will be depressed, actually hate learning some days, hate
yourself some days and you won't be your best self. But I'm glad I don't have
the chance to tell myself any of this. (But I would tell my past self to stop making fun of Drake because I become obsessed with him after "Hotline Bling" comes out.) But I wouldn't give my younger
self any advice. I wouldn't change a single thing I've been through. I'm a
stronger and a more tolerant person than I have ever been. I'm grateful for
the tricks life has thrown at me and how I've grown into myself.