Lying, Underneath.

FutureMe

Dear FutureMe,

It's been a while writing. The only reason the past tense of you is trying to throw up words is that she thinks of you. I wonder if you ever look back at me and think, how well she did with what she knew. I don't know you. And to be fair you'll probably look back at me and feel like you don't know me either.

I don't remember what I wanted to say. I don't wanna say what I remember. It's so easy to write letters to others, why is it that for you I have nothing to say? Where I am, seems to be nowhere at all. My life is empty and unreal. I feel I am in danger of vanishing if I don't do something heroic. But you have to stop being heroic and impressive to others. It's exhausting. I don't wanna look back and be left with a vague sense of loss over something we never really had, to begin with. I think I am scared of things when it ends. I haven't gotten myself to finish any series of books recently. I hope you learned how to end things. Don't search for why you couldn't finish them. Don't remember me as an illness.

I seduce myself with hope. I am pathologically homesick for the lives that I haven't lived. Some days I pack suitcases and pretend that I have just arrived. I don't wanna live so laboriously, I want a friend to sit in front of me in the local bookstore and look at me through the pages of the new Ocean-Vuong book.

I don't know what kind of grown-up problems you're facing now, but I hope none of it involves your friends. Did you find people along the way and kept them close? How about the friends I have now, are they still yours? Do they have a family? Are they happy? Are you happy? I wonder if you are happy. I have often found myself attempting to peer into your future, my desperate fingers fumbling at the unforgiving gauze of the time that separates what I know from what is still unclear. I think about you so frequently that it is nearly crippling, my every decision was paralyzed by the fear that I might be disappointed in myself.

I still haven't figured out what you're doing, but I'm surprisingly ok with that. I think I'm a little more concerned about who you are and the person you've come to be. I hope you're more sure of yourself, at least. If you feel down and sad, but you don't know why, so you're going to subconsciously give yourself an explanation by saying my life must suck or you must suck, or must be doing something wrong. Don't. Sometimes it's not that deep. Don't let it be. You can't end your suffering if you keep identifying with it so much.

I think I might have found my purpose in life. Let's just exist. Let's not be burdened with the horrifying ordeal of having a purpose.

The same playlist plays for too long in my dream. Maybe It's me that I miss, I hope you found her.

From,
Your 21-year-old self,
I hope you still write.