Dear Freshman Me,
I know.
I know all about the intrusive thoughts that kept you awake in the night. I know all about the deep-seated traumas that constantly triggered them. I know all about how they burdened every fiber of your being with tender insecurities—wounding your mind, body and soul.
I know.
I know all about each external and internal war you valiantly fought to win. I know all about each battle that left you indelibly scarred. I know all about how they aged you far beyond the years of your young life.
I know.
So, of course, I also know all about your reasons for leaving your small hometown in New Jersey to attend university in the Big Apple. Tightly, you held on to the belief that by packing your bags and heading to an unfamiliar school, in an unfamiliar town, filled with unfamiliar faces, you could finally leave the weight of your wounded past, in the past.
However, four years later, I’m writing to tell you that your plan didn’t work.
Instead, when you hit the road, attempting to flee from your troubles, they followed you. Silently, they’re waiting for the excitement of college to die down to abruptly come back to life. Yes, the excitement of your new college life will bury them for a while, but with time, they will surely arise. Each stinging insecurity, each intrusive thought, each painful wound, will rise again. Suddenly, every dark cloud you thought you escaped will rain down on you. Undoubtably, times will get hard.
Yet, as I write to you from the luminous calm of the dark storm you’re so desperately trying to avoid, I want you to know that the only way out of your troubles is through them. The day you finally decide to sit still, learn and grow from everything you’ve been through, a new and improved you will come into existence. Because, a new and improved you doesn’t simply start in a new state, town, or amongst new faces. Rather, a new and improved you starts with a new mindset; a mindset devoted to being the true you buried under all your pain and insecurities.
Still, I know that as you start this chapter of your life, you’ll find it difficult to accept my written words to you. So, to ease your worries, I’ll spoil the ending for you. In the end, everything will turn out just fine. You’ll sit still with your pain, learn from it, and most importantly, grow from it. After you embrace the wounds life inflicted on your innocence, you’ll understand why and how you must let them go. So, as you mourn the necessary death of your weaker self, another version of you will take her place.
With more power and force.
Yours Newly,
The New and Improved Version of You, From the Future
P.S. Thank you for making me who I am today. I love you.