Letter From My Past Self

This year, on my birthday (September 15^th), I received an unexpected email. It was one I had set up to be sent to my future self, back in January of 2019, which was my freshman year of high school. My English teacher that year had assigned us to make this little message for the future. I’d like to respond to that message.  

First off, I am so sorry about the March you were about to endure that year. The COVID lockdown was NOT a good time; it changed us in many ways, some bad, some good. I wished myself a “Happy 19^th birthday,” though this was sent to me on my 20^th birthday. Look at us, we were 14 then, now I’m 20. We’re getting old, girl!  

You told me that you were sitting in Mrs. Pavone’s ELA class, bored. I want to tell you this: we ended up treasuring Mrs. Pavone; you had her again in your junior year. It’s making me tear up as I sit here writing this: without her, we wouldn’t have found the strength to pursue writing, to begin sharing our work with other people.

In the future, you try and try to reach out to her to tell you how far you’ve come, but the emails go unanswered. You think you must’ve written down the email wrong. I think I saw her in a hibachi restaurant in late August this year. It was when I went out with my boyfriend for his 19^th birthday (funny, isn’t it?), I wanted to say hi, but she was enjoying time with her family, and I didn’t want to intrude. 

But let me tell you about that junior year. You find the strength to publish some of your work on a website called Teenink, under your dreamed-up pen name of Nix Rosegold. A handful of the poems you put up there got an “editor’s choice” badge. Now, we write and edit for St. Bonaventure University’s Laurel, a literary magazine.  

You ask me if my older sister is still hyper-fixated on Marvel’s Loki; we’d grown somewhat used to her changing fixations that come with her autism. I tell you this: no, now she’s hyper fixated on the Phantom of the Opera and classic monsters like Dracula, werewolves, and Frankenstein’s creation.  

You leave me with the words: “Love yourself, you’re just as important as anyone else, and help others YOU MUST HAVE SELF CONFIDENCE.” And my goodness, that is something we’re still working on. We’ve really started to get better and begun breaking out of our shell. The fact that I’m writing this article now proves it. But there are times I still feel doubts and negative thoughts of “you’re not good enough and never will be” ringing in my mind. It is something I keep trying to get better at. Also, no, we haven’t had a full book published yet but have had multiple poems and short stories published. 

However, I want to leave you with these words: I think you’d be kind of proud of how far we’ve come in these sixish years.  

I love you too, high school freshman me.  

• #experience
• after high school
• mental health
• reflection
• school
• writing