Hey, kiddo.
I know, it’s strange to be calling my future self a kid while I’m younger than you. But I’m still going to call you that, because I think you need a reminder that you’re a kid. Not that you’re too naive or chaotic or dumb, but that you are a kid, afterall, and you need to remember that that’s okay.
I hope you got to somewhere you’ll be happy with. I know that, deep down, you don’t quite agree with what your mum has pushed you to do, and I hope you go somewhere that gives you the space and support to become a more intelligent, determined, and whole person. It could be all of these places, I’m sure, and I hope you’re pleasantly surprised. But, if you’re not, you have to remember that it’s okay. It really is.
I’ll tell you now, your brain will lie to you. It will tell you all these things about how you’ve failed and you’re worthless and you could’ve done better but you didn’t which means you deserve it and you’re a disgrace to your family and they won’t love you anymore, and they’ve never loved you anyway. You will think to yourself that you are less worthwhile than your friends who’s gotten into the colleges of their dreams, and you will see yourself as an irredeemable failure that has no future.
None of this is true. I repeat, none of this is true. You know better than anyone that what college you go to doesn’t determine your worth or what kind of person you are. You exist beyond the institutions of society, and that something is what any rejection letter can’t take away from you: yourself. Your excitement at new theories and ideas, your love for your friends, your charm for words and language, the books inside you yet to be written and the photos yet to be shot and the words you’ve yet to say–all that is yours and yours beyond applications of all things. You are young, and there are so many happy days ahead.
You must resist the societal temptation to judge yourself and others by the metrics imposed on us. It is not easy, but it’s simple, because none of these value judgements are real restraints if I don’t believe in them—and I don’t, I geniunely don’t. There are amazingly intelligent and wonderful people in and out of all sorts of institutions, and there’s no reason for me to be subjugated to self-deprecation just because I didn’t “make” a certain list. At the same time, never, ever make an assumption that someone isn’t good enough or intelligent enough or less or more than you based on the university they attend. You know yourself how untrue and uncompassionate that judgement is.
No matter where you are, there is something to love there, and things to do, and people to care about and help for. It is difficult, and don’t beat yourself up for succumbing to the addictive streams of information in your life—but realize the difference between the worriless state of mind you get from scrolling on instagram and the rich, joyful fulfillment you get from finishing a piece of art or a piece of writing. Chase the latter for as long as you can, and cherish the people in your life. There are so many things waiting for you, and, believe it or not, you can do anything. Anything. It might fail, it might not work out, it might take a really, really long time, but I believe in you, and I believe in this world of ours.
More importantly, remember that, as unbelievable as it sounds, you are loved; yet, at the same time, you have the right to walk away from a love that makes you less than who you want to be. Remember that your parents love you, even if they don’t always love you the way you wish you were loved. Remember that the fact that they love you and you love them doesn’t mean it’s wrong for you to say no and to live your own life, and that if that decision causes them unhappiness, it is not your job to live the way they want you to live. Remember that your friends love you, even if they don’t show it in the way you give it to them, even if they live thousands of miles away and your insecurities bubble up—-there is love there for each other, and you must remember that it’s real, and cherish it. Love exists beyond whatever happens at the end of May.
You are more grass than string, than songbird, than golden charms. You will lose what you once held dear, and you will repent and shame and be shamed, and you will fear it was all for naught. But you shoot up, again and again, from where you were trampled and wilted and broken. You will never, ever be irreparably broken. You will be upset and you will question yourself and you will feel like there is no end to the misery, and you will ask what’s the point of still being here. And then you will remember. You think about the nicknames that your friends gave you. You will recall the bubbles you’ve blew over the buildings with your friends, you will remember the notes of violin that makes a shiver run through your body, you will remember the way a quote makes your heart blossom, you will remember the comfort of snuggling in a blanket in a cold winter day, you think of all the things you’ve yet to do and the places you’ve yet to seen and the trees you’ve yet to hug and the people you’ve yet to say hello and goodbye. You will remember the joy and laughter and love and empathy that drive you to suck the marrow out of life, and you will realize that the meaninglessness of life is a gift, because it allows me to build and rebuild myself, whatever way I want, whenever I want, and that I am the poet of my own life.
And you will live and grow and be not perfect but good, and that, my friend, is your life. You will live it well, I promise; you know me better than anyone that I don’t lie.