Dear past me. Dear me. The one in the past.
You're innocent. But never without a care. You care too much. You worry.
Dear six-year-old-me (6).
You cry thinking about how life would be if you lost your best friend. You cry despite the fact that you're going to see said best friend at school tomorrow. She's not going anywhere. But you know stuff. You know that life doesn't stay still at age six for very long and some day your best friend might just end up being a distant memory. And then you will be too old to mourn the end of your friendship. So you cry now.
Dear ten-year-old-me (10).
You celebrate your birthday with the new group of friends you've made since you moved three months ago. You eat pizza, laugh and do silly-dances across the room. Pictures are taken while you pose. Your new friends are all girly-girls with pouts and heavy makeup and clothes you never thought someone so young could ever wear. But they do and so do you. After a while. Boys are pretty interesting as well, aren't they? And best friend? She's in the past.
Dear thirteen-year-old-me (13).
The teenage years are ahead of you and you're proud because you feel old and mature now. You have your first alcoholic drink and it makes you bubbly and dizzy and very, very happy. Things are starting to change. Some for the better. Some for the worse. It all catches up with you and your temporary freedom is short lived. You are being watched. You have to protect someone. You're feeling way too much for someone so young.
Dear sixteen-year-old-me (16).
Is that you? You're pale and plain, quiet and shy. You don't know how to laugh and be totally carefree. At some level you go from sixteen to oh-so-old. Your hair is blonde, the makeup has faded throughout the years and that turtleneck that you're wearing? You've got it six different colors. But you have a new best friend. She is childish so she brings out the child in you.
Dear seventeen-year-old-me (17).
Stripes and dots and converse. Blonde and black hair. Cigarettes. A little bit of alcohol. And guess what? You're happy. You're getting back to your carefree old selv again - you live hard and large and face the consequences head on, but still manage to not do anything too stupid. You're young and stupid in a clever and grown-up kind of way. Maybe those though life experiences can be useful after all?
Dear nineteen-year-old-me (19).
This is a though time for you. You're trying to make sense of everything, but find no solution anywhere. Maybe moving nine hours away from home wasn't such a good idea. Maybe life is fucked up after all. You had your suspicions when you were younger. Seems like they were correct. Your hair is a total black now. A piercing rests on your lip. You're pale and tired and afraid of your own phone. You let the battery die so you don't have to worry about anyone calling. You don't bother showering for days. Something is wrong.
Dear twenty-one-year-old-me (21).
You're in a good place. Sort of. You've changed studies, moved back to your home town. And then 2011 arrives and you live it to the fullest - until there is darkness. Uncertainty, echonomy, several deaths. People are there and they are nice and kind and alive and then they dissapear because they're suddenly not alive anymore. You drink your troubles away but they catch up with you. When you're twenty-two.
Dear twenty-two-year-old-me (22).
Dear present-self. Dear me. Live, laugh, love. You keep telling yourself these things every day. And you try. So hard, you try. It almost went downhill. You picked yourself up again. You try to tread the water as hard as you can. It's OK, things will sort themselves out eventually. In the mean while - be with your family. Your friends. Your best friend.
Oh yes, the one you cried for when you were six. Now you're both twenty-two. You still cry sometimes of the thought of losing her. But she never dissapeard in the first place, did she? She's still here. You're still here.
So live. Laugh. Love. I'll contact you in ten years or so. And tell you about it all.
