Dear freshman self,

Today is the first day of school. You already got ready in your new clothes and put on the backpack your dad handed down from his college years. You were prepared for high school and the next four years of your life, or so you thought. Over the course of the freshman year you will struggle constantly with who you want to be, what direction you want to go, who you want to hang out with, who you should hang out with and why you’re even trying to fit in. Then at the end of the year one of the most important people in your life dies. Your grandmother. You spend the whole day at school in shock not letting anyone know anything and putting on a brave face, only to come home to no father or uncle or aunt to greet you at home. Come to find out you won’t see anyone until the funeral. After the funeral you struggle during classes because you will think about her. You will spend the next four months struggling with grades, breaking down whenever you are alone and distancing yourself from friends. Then you will go into summer doubting yourself every step towards sophomore year.

Sophomore year you will change a tiny bit. You will tell all your friends about the cool summer you had when realistically you didn’t do anything out of the ordinary. All year long the only drama you will have is at home with a quarrelsome family you have. You will tell your dad everything is okay and try not to stress him out while he deals with financial issues. Only for him to tell you, “It’s okay to feel emotions, to cry, let people in and tell me when you’re worried.” You will meet the new music teacher, Mr. Raman due to an interview for journalism. He’ll teach you to love music again and guide you through the rest of high school with bad jokes and a love from friends. You’ll never know how to thank him for any advice and times he let you cry in his office and support you. He becomes a companion you go to when no one else will listen or comprehend your issues. Meeting new people from the music program and helping establish new roots for the program will give you a sense of pride and joy. Eventually you will leave for a journey in Costa Rica that’ll help you grow as a person. At the end of the year, accomplishment and hope is all you have and nothing will get in the way of that.

Junior year you will have a spring in your step. Summer changed you because family matters at home ended and you stand up for yourself, dad and brother. The only problem is you will focus so much on having fun and living that you’ll forget about those who’ve helped you along the way. It won’t be your intentions but you begin to grow apart from old friends and fall into a crowd that you know will have your back in any situation. The new energy from these people make you change perspective because of them you will learn to love you for you. You will learn to thrive for you and not anyone else. There will be no need to please other people, and you will have people around you that will listen to you and not constantly think about themselves. Junior year will be your year of fun including a wild summer, except now you have to say goodbye to those you’ve met because they will graduate. However you will accept it and feel it in your gut that they will be lifelong friends.

Senior year will be the year of no regrets for you. It will be the most adventurous year of your life. The decision to try dating again after your naive self-made a few mistakes, yet you won’t regret making, will come up again. You shoot your shot with a guy because you don’t want to wait and know life is always a huge risk and to your luck you score. You will spend all of your senior year with him and although you have your rough patches he will stay and support you. Friends you thought would never speak to you again come back then leave yet some stay. You will have many more issues with family, but throughout the years you will have developed a tough skin. Your life with real world problems and not being sheltered like some will allow you to see what you need to get done to finish the year and know the adult decisions you have to make. It’ll be the year that you don’t care about anyone’s opinions at all. It will be the year that you know you are ready for life. However you slow down enough to take it all in. Learn exactly who the fake people are in your life and who the people you never expected to be real are. And although you will have decided that you won’t go to a four year college because you didn’t think you had what it takes, you will be okay. You will realize you’ll have the ability to travel and build your life without the limitations of a campus.

Senior year will be the year of knowing that all those issues, questions, late night talks, breakdowns and mistakes were well worth it. And in those last months of high school your journalism teacher will ask you to write about your experience through your four years and you won’t know what the hell to write but you start typing, remembering, crying and realizing everything will always be okay if you have hope and don’t fear what life has to offer.

Sincerely,

The senior you