September 21, 2023
125 Park Ave,
Lake Ronkonkoma
11779, NY
USA
Dear Past Self,
You were so happy. Being oblivious to the real world. Your only problem was what time you had to go to bed. Your dream was to be a teacher. When you would play as a teacher you would have your family act like the students. You and your sister would play as high schoolers. Soon enough, you were. You dreamed of being older. Whatever your sister did, you wanted to do. Just because she was older. It bothered her and her friends. Which always started fights between us. You just wanted to be older.
You also wanted to be a chef. You always watched MasterChef with your dad. Either that or Hell’s Kitchen. You would always make dinner for your family or cook with your mom. You were a happy girl. Always smiling and laughing.
If I could give you any advice, I would tell you to not get too comfortable. You never know what is going to happen in life. I wish I would have known how messy life was going to be. You had no idea what was coming to you. You had no idea there would be a fire in your kitchen or that Dad lost his job. Change is hard. It is going to hit you like a rock. When you got to high school you thought it was going to be like the movies. You were so excited for it. It was not like the movies. It was filled with drama and was messy. You lost friends you thought you would have forever. Like the girl you grew up with across the street. You went through so many emotions. Popularity took over. Took all your childhood friends. It was different. It wasn’t a good different either. 9th grade was the worst year of your life. Your house caught fire, luckily it was small, and you moved. Your mental health was the worst it would ever be.
I wonder how the happy, bubbly little girl changed into a dull teen. The nigh of the fire, your safe place vanished. You were moving a month later and you couldn’t even spend that month in your house. You had to spend it in a hotel.
I wish you could’ve known that in high school you shouldn’t have let people get to you. You need to be your own person. Take the risks. Go to the football or volleyball games. You don’t want to miss out. It goes fast. You will blink and you will be a senior. Also, be patient with mom and dad. They do everything for you. They also go through everything for you. You will learn that in the future.
Don’t be so hard on yourself either. You don’t want to be your own bully. You are PERFECT. Remember that. Do not change for anyone. Stay who you are now. Growing up is normal. But stay true to yourself.
I hope you are happy about how we turned out. I hope you are proud of yourself. You should be. You are the best version of yourself. Stay happy. Be with your friends. Listen to mom and dad. Even listen to your sister. Sometimes she knows more than them.
It gets better from here. You got this.
Talk to you soon,
Aly.
September 21, 2023
1223 Mill Road
Ronkonkoma
11779, NY
USA
Dear Future Self,
Did we make it? Are we owning our salon? How are we? I hope we are okay. I know things are rough right now, but I believe we got this. I hope we got through it. I know we will. I also hope we got our college degree. I am trying so hard to pass the classes for us. I also hope we start working at a salon again soon. That is all I want right now. I want to officially work at a salon when I am free.
I also hope the rest of our college experience was good. I like it so far. We are a lot happier here than how we were at home. At home I am stressed and angry. We would get angry too quickly. Do we get happier at home? I hope we become happier. I also hope we become more patient with mom and dad. They don’t deserve how I treat them now. They do everything for me. I know we were always close to mom but, did we end up getting closer to dad?
I hope in 5-7 years we are a manager at a salon. It will help to learn how to run a business. I want to start working on our goal of being an owner. Even if we stay a manager for a while, that will be great too. I wonder if we are still in contact with anyone from home or college. I hope we are. Some should be forever friends. Did mom and dad ever end up moving out of state? They keep talking about it. Well mainly mom. She is talking about moving to Texas right now. I wish Long Island wasn’t so expensive. I don’t want my family to move. Not again. Where do we live? Are we on Long Island? Did we all move away? I hope now.
In 5-7 years, I also hope we live on our own. Which will be hard because we just would be getting out of school but still. It will be hard at first because we need a stable job. I hope I can find one. Do we live in the apartments by ourselves? I wonder if we just end up moving down the hall from mom and dad. I know mom would be happy about that. She calls every night saying she misses me at school.
I really wonder what our future will be like. I just want to know if we are happy. That is most important. I also wonder if we got that puppy we have been talking about since we were 8. Or if we have another parakeet. We should. I just hope we have a good college experience and graduate. That is important too. I just want to know we grew up having a good time. Did we? Are we ok?
I hope when you read this we are. I hope we are happy. Who knows when you will be reading this. Anyways, I hope we have what we ever dreamed of.
Love,
Aly.
Reflection:
I have never actually written a letter before. In middle school I would write to my future self but, it wasn’t a proper letter. The assignment taught me how to proper have the write format for a letter. I didn’t have a writing process. It was just me writing what I thought at that moment. I didn’t make an outline or anything. My final product was after I edited the draft and realized I missed a little. I thought the peer review was helpful. My partner told me I needed to fix small mistakes and to add to a part. Which I did. The only thing that didn’t really work was that neither of us really talked. It was our first time talking to it was a little awkward since I wrote about some of my sensitive past. Speaking to my past made me a little upset in a way. I’m not sure how to explain it. I felt bad telling myself what was going to happen in life. Some parts were awful. Little me would never have expected it. It was hard talk to the past and future. The past you know what happened but, the future I have no clue what will happen. I don’t even know if my career is right for me. In my letter, I think I did say important things. Especially to my past self. I think I would give myself around an 80 for this assignment. I am not a strong writer. I struggle a lot. So, I think my letter is all over the place. I know my grammar is most Definity all messed up. I could just be stronger when I am writing. It will improve hopefully but for right now an 80 sounds good.