There are two and a half days left of my senior year and I just received a letter from myself that I sent two years, nine months, and ten days ago in July 2011 back when I was transferring schools after not liking my freshman year. I decided to write it after my family didn’t think I’d make it at a public school and didn’t think I knew what I was “getting into”. The letter read, “Hey, what’s up with you? Are you okay? I really hope so. I hope you’re doing well at school. I hope that you fit in with everyone, and that we made the right choice to leave our last one. Are you happy now? Did you prove everyone wrong? I hope you did. It’ll be nice to rub it in their faces and say “I told you I’d be fine.” You should be a senior now. Was it a good three years? I hope you graduate to college with a big smile on your face. Good luck, future me. I hope we prove them wrong.” Now I’m sitting here, almost done with high school, and I can’t say I made past me proud. At least not in the way past me thought I would.

Three years ago, I thought I’d transfer from catholic to public school and have the high school life that one finds in books. I didn’t realize that that wasn’t reality. I thought I’d have boyfriends, and go to parties, and try new things, and just do everything one expects a normal “high schooler” to do. Instead, I struggled with depression, self-harm, an eating disorder, getting my heart broken, many thoughts about killing myself, spending many nights alone, hating myself, losing friends, and finding out that I was my own worse enemy. I may not be standing at graduation with a big smile on my face, but instead a weary one that’s just happy to be done with it all.So would past me be proud of this? Would I be proud that I didn’t spend the last three years of high school how I expected to? Maybe not.

But I have to say, present me is pretty proud of past me for just surviving through it all.