Dear future me,
“You are your biggest critic”. Of course I know this is true, but that’s not why I decided to write this letter. The purpose is not to criticize who I am now, or build expectations to what I aspire to be, but rather to create goals of where I would like to be. As humans we are often too hard on ourselves because we have these expectations that we create for ourselves, and allow other people to contribute their expectations as well. That is why this is a letter of hope, not to form impossible expectations.
You are currently sixteen years of age. Old enough to understand the basic concepts of life, what’s going on in the world around you, and most of all, think about the future. And when I say “think about the future”, I don’t mean the way you thought about the future when you were 10. I so long to go back to those days, when life was much simpler. When you were that young, you lived in a different world. A pretend kind of world. Did you ever notice that as a kid, when you played with toys and dolls, you would create your “pretend life” based on what you want your real future life to be like it? Okay maybe you were too young to realize it, but it’s true.
When you were young and “played pretend”, your barbies were always rich, had a big house, wore designer clothes, were super popular, had seven children, and a nice car. Honestly that’s probably what everyone wants in their future, but I’ve never really wanted it that way. When I think of my future, I picture something like this: not rich (I’ve never wanted to be), but enough money to live off of, a nice house, a decent car, a loving husband, a happy family, and a good job. It may seem so stupidly simple, but I’m not asking for much, right? Sometimes even that seems too difficult to hope for. I just hope you have something those things now, by the time you're reading this. Often times what we picture in our heads is nothing close to reality, but I’ve tried not to stray too far from the realness of things.
The truth is, I pray and think about those things every day. I’ve never been one of those people that longs for money and fame. I just want an average, happy life, you know? This year is when things started to get real. You spend all your elementary school years learning the basics, middle school is that “weird” phase in your life, but when you get to high school you really start thinking about things. Like college, as an example. You know it’s coming your whole life but when it comes time to actually think about it, it just hits you out of nowhere. That’s what’s happened this year. I just can’t even begin to wrap my brain around the fact that after next year, I’ll be on my own. I’ll be an adult. How does it feel now, to be an adult? Probably not as scary as how I’m anticipating, right?
I wonder if you have those things now. 26 years of age, you should have your life together by now, Megan. I spend a great deal of time wondering about where you’ll be. First, I wonder where physically. Where do you live now? My dream is to move to New York. No one would see me as one who would desire to live in the city, however, I think I like the idea of a big city, where you could not leave the house for four days and no one would ever know. There’s so much to do in the city, so much freedom I could find there that I do not have now. But who knows, the future is so unpredictable. And that’s what I hate about it. I hate unpredictable things, and unpredictable people. There’s just something so terrifying about the unknown.
I wonder if you’ve changed. And by changed I mean, have you really changed? Like not the new haircut, new jeans kind of changed, but the changes that occur inside. If I were to sit here and name all the things I don’t like about myself, we’d be here for a long time. So instead of picking out the unpolished pieces, I’m going to hope that I continue to become a better person. Sometimes I wonder, why don’t people like me? Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of people that like me and I’m aware of that, but there’s people that don’t and sometimes I spend so much time wondering what I’m doing wrong that causes the dislike. So my hope for you is that you spend a lot less time wondering about those things and embrace yourself for who you are and not let other people dictate who you should be.
I also hope you’ve stopped holding grudges. One of my biggest weaknesses and something that will holds me down in many situations, I hope that you’ve become better at forgiving people. You’ve never been good at that, but I hope by the time you read this it will be a much easier task. But in contrast to that hope, I also hope you’re not so “nice”. I’m too nice. People have told me that, and I used to think there was never such a thing as “too nice”, but apparently there is and I am “too nice”. I let people walk all over me like a hardwood floor, and quite honestly I’m tired of it. That’s something I hope to change, because I’ve always wanted to be nice, but never to the extent of being taken for granted. Someone once said to me “ you’re so loyal that you’d destroy yourself for someone else”, and that’s the truest statement about me I’ve ever heard. It holds so much truth, and it is unfortunately something I’ve done one too many times.
Lastly, I hope you’ve found value in yourself. You’ve never been in-confident, but the things you’ve been through have really taken a toll on how you see yourself. Maybe one day all these things will have some meaning. Everything has a reason, right? That’s what you’ve always told yourself. Whenever you need reassurance on something, that is your go-to comforting statement, and I suppose time will tell if it is indeed true. Maybe these things that are going through my head now won’t even matter when you’re reading this.
Anyway, I should let you go now. You probably have better things to do than listen to your sixteen year old self ramble on. I just hope you’re happy. With life, with yourself, with everything. That’s all I can hope for now.
-your 16 year old self
