traces of stardust

just keep going

song that describes how i'm feeling
losing my religion // glee cast version

Every so often, I wonder how my younger self would view who we've grown up to be. In all honesty, I don't know if they'd be proud. If anything, the one thing they'd want to do is scream the simple solution I couldn't see was right in front of me (until it was too late anyway) towards all the problems that have taken place over the years.

Maybe I'm being too hard on myself; it's been a main component in my nature ever since I reached the middle of my first year in high school and after all, past Dan didn't have a clue what was coming for them.

Here's what I would tell my younger self if I somehow was given the ability to.

First let me fill in some of the holes here, just so you're not left completely in the dark like I was (and tend to still be quite literally, but we'll get to that).

You were used to getting picked on; looking back on it now I wish I could give you the biggest hug and let you know how you'd make it through all the bad, especially when it felt like the end. I wouldn't trade those hardships for good times, despite the pleas made to God to send them away into oblivion while they were our present. Your eyes are probably out of your sockets at this confession but at the end of the day  we wouldn't truly be Dan Howell without them.

I want to do this gradually, because the last thing you need to have happen is a freak out while trying to take in all these aspects at once. Here's a simple one; your favorite color isn't yellow anymore. I know, you're thinking it's a shame that you couldn't at least have that remain consistent but as you've gotten older the color spectrum is something that you appreciate more, especially when you draw (which I think it's okay to say you've gotten a bit better at), take pictures on your phone (yeah, you have your own one now and you wouldn't believe how fast technology has come), and see light in its various forms, whether that be from Christmas lights outside during the holiday season or how movies are able to capture the beauty of color in the best ways imaginable. Contenders that have filled the place for yellow include blue, purple, and as of nearly a year, orange.

You don't have as many people in your life that you once did. You'll spend too much time blaming yourself and after many instances of the same thing happening (friendships becoming so cracked they couldn't be mended) you'll give up. This isn't the best ending I'll be the first to say it, not having the trust in those of a similar age group as yourself that they want to stick by you is hard. My next point might allow this to make sense to you, but just know I didn't do this to cause you hurt, quite the opposite actually; I just couldn't take the wounds anymore so I stepped away in hopes I could heal. You're still working on it (as it was a recent decision) but I hope you know I'm only trying to take care of us, which is something we've forced away into the corner out of shame for far too long.

You know how everyone would shove the shy kid label on to you? You were so desperate for people to like you for who you were and have a place you'd belong, but after the teasing gradually increased to tenfold as you grew up, a switch went off in your head that made you crawl into a ball and not want to give anyone a chance to belittle you. Turns out that switch caused much more than that, it just took you having a panic attack (though you weren't aware of the term at the time) in the school's bathroom your junior year to finally figure it out. You have a mental illness that they call anxiety, which (at least in your mind now) causes your panic sensor to go off like a car alarm with the lightest of objects as your trigger. If I'm honest, as I'm telling this to you you're not doing so well with it. I feel like I'm letting you down but I'm doing the best with what I can muster, which I hope is enough.

Am I scaring you by piling all this up at a such a fast pace? I probably am let's not kid ourselves here. I'm sorry, that really wasn't my plan when I sat down and thought this through. How about we go a different direction?

I'm not going to give you any more spoilers into how your life has changed since you were the present me, I'm pretty sure I've done enough of that. Instead, I'm going to end this with giving you something I needed to hear when our lives starting going upside down.

You're going to change as a person, it's unavoidable. Take this and run with who you want to become in mind as you fulfill one milestone and start on the next. It's okay to not have yourself together like everyone else does because quite frankly, you were never like them to begin with.

Your existence seems to feel like you're going through hell; all while there's no definite goal you have set in front of you to help you out of it. When this hits you the hardest, remember who you used to be and try to think how they would want you to take that particular situation on. If you can't keep going for someone else's sake or even your own, think of the past years you've been alive and just hope someday you'll be able to look back on your present self as you're doing now with your past ones.

Please, just keep going.