Dear present me,
Here’s the thing about being a teenager: sometimes, it’s not always “the best years of your life.”
Sometimes it’s the worst, or sometimes it’s just in between the gradient of those two; regardless, everyone’s experience with it is different.
My experience was distorted, to say the least, and that’s the nicest way I can phrase it. It was convoluted, twisted, and expansive, but also necessary, helpful, and, at times, very nostalgic. All things that I am grateful for but would never wish upon anyone else.
It’s not an experience I particularly love to reminisce upon, but I’d also be lying if I said that necessarily every aspect of my teenage years was “bad.” As Iris West (Candice Patton) said when trying to help restore Barry Allen’s (Grant Gustin) memory, “For every bad memory, there is always a good one to get you through it.”
I couldn’t resonate with that quote any more than I already have, however, I just wish I didn’t always feel like I was being pulled in every direction to try out anything and everything regardless of how it make me feel and what my mental capacity can handle.
I feel like so many of my teenage years are spent worrying about the rest of my life when it should just be about being a teenager. So much time is spent wondering what the “elderly” will think. There’s no more annoying feeling in the world than when an adult tries to become a guidance counselor and tries to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do with your life. And if that isn’t enough, there’s always someone who’s reminding you to answer the question, “What do you want to go into?”
Don’t get me wrong; it’s not so much that being asked these questions and told this information is irritating, it’s just rather repetitive and what makes it worse is when it feels like all eyes are on me 24/7.
Especially at the high school level, these questions only seem to increase in frequency, and it only makes that pressure of either “not knowing” or “questioning your knowledge” that much more difficult.
However, what I can say is this: When it comes to being a teenager, it’s important to learn what advice to take and not take when thinking about doing what you want in life.
So much of our lives are spent trying to be like other people and falling into a better version of ourselves—while all of that is great, what could that lifestyle look like for you?
Sometimes, the grass isn’t greener on the other side. While this is much easier said than done, when it comes to life, it’s important to answer the questions that the universe is asking you—not your friends, not your parents, not your grandparents, not your teachers, and certainly not your boss. What is the universe asking you? Because I’m almost sure that what it is asking of you is a lot different than what it’s asking your friend.
Irrespective of this, if there’s anything you got out of reading this, it’s that I want you to focus on exactly what it is you want to do with your life but also be a teenager because it constitutes exactly 2,555 days of your life. And that’s a lot of days to be wasted on what the future could look like.
Sincerely,
present me
