How exciting it must feel for you to be finally 18. I know that this is a time that you've been waiting for, partly because most people wait for this time, and mainly because, well, I am you. You see, I write this letter openly to let you know what it is like to be you 12 years hence. I don't know that you will necessarily like the way I look, but if you know something about the person you'll become, it should be that I don't necessarily care what you think. There have certainly been some experiences in my life the past 12 years that have shaped the person that I am as I approach this new decade of life.
There is nothing that can prepare you for certain things that will happen. At 19, you will experience something that you will never wish upon anyone else. At first it will seem like it's life-shattering, like everything you've ever known and will ever now suddenly stops. It's like you get a sense of the world around you moving, but you were somehow tethered to the earth incapable of motion yourself. What I can assure you is that you are stronger person than you know that you are. In fact, we will handle certain things with grace that you never thought you would, and other things you will handle in ways you wish you hadn't, but in the spirit of true knowledge, you chalk it up to a learning experience. That's one thing I've always liked about you, one thing I've always liked about me. There will be things in your life that seem impossible to overcome, but that is never stopped you before, and it never will again.
You will grow to love college. I know that it wasn't something that was easy for you to adjust to. You will be successful by most people standards. More importantly, you will be successful based on your own standards which are somehow more elevated than a standard held by others. You will be surprised that the direction you thought you could go is not the direction that you will take but definitely the direction that you were meant to be going towards. I know that you resist the belief in our predetermined destiny, but somewhere along the line, you except that things are placed in your path for a reason. Remember that life isn't always about a destination, but rather about a journey. As cliché as that may be, it will be one of the guiding principles of your professional life. Don't worry, becoming a teacher isn't that bad.
You've always had an over inflated sense of self-confidence and don't worry, that never goes away. The problem with your overconfidence is your inability to open up to people. It will take you a while to realize this, but somewhere along the way you do. You will always remain cautious of those you let into your life, but the ones that matter the most you always manage to hang onto, and they always manage to hang onto you. You will always have a tough exterior, a shell that will protect you from certain harm, but you can always remember to take it off occasionally and show the parts of you that are worth seeing.
There are many painful and beautiful lessons to be learned along the way. Some involve great losses, others involved great victories. You must always remember to take the good with the bad, the light with the dark, and the wins with the losses. You were not always the most gracious of winners or the most gracious of losers, but nevertheless, you will find that winning and losing have their own merits.
You will become many things to many people, and that could be awfully confusing to the person you would like to be to yourself. You will constantly discover, lose, and rediscover the person that you are and who you're meant to be. As I write this openly to you, I'm not quite sure I even know what that means as of today. You will read many great things and take many of the deeper meanings of life from the literature you encounter. You find that, at times, you yourself resemble more of a character than you do a person, but that's all part of the journey of self-discovery.
Maybe at 18 you want to know what all people want to know. Maybe at 18 you think you already know what you need to know. At this point, none of that matters. What matters is that you find happiness in places that you never thought you would. You find disappointment in people you never thought you would. We will sometimes confuse your hopefulness with expectations, but in the end you'll learn that life goes on, and you continue to grow and develop as a human being. There is no one in this world worth changing more than yourself.
I assure you that you will find love. It will be wonderful. It will be different from everything you've ever imagined it would be. You won't know it when you see it, but you will know. It's the kind of love that changes everything. It alters the world that you knew for the world that you expect as well as the life that you will lead because that's exactly what love does. I know you don't understand that now, and I know that you don't care, but once you open that door, you will never walk back through.
There is nothing that could ever truly prepare you for life. Everybody will have suggestions, and everybody will give you opinions, but at the end of the day, you are fully responsible for all of your actions. Never forget that. You will always speak your mind, and not necessarily tactfully. We are still working on that. We are also not very good at admitting when we are wrong. That's because it rarely happens. Wink.
There will come a day when you will look in the mirror and stop seeing the person you were when you were 13 years old. I can't tell you when that day will be, but I'm hoping it sometime soon. That time has to come, because there will be a time for you to put away childish things because there is no time for you to be a child anymore. Being 18 doesn't make you an adult; it makes you numerically worthy of such a title, but it doesn't make you a man. What makes you a man is being able to reflect on the choices you've made and the things that you've done and sleep peacefully at night knowing that it wasn't all perfect, but it was what it was. The only childish things you will have time for at 30 are the childish things you do with your own son. It is your opportunity to make things right you couldn't make right with yourself. It is your chance to have a small piece of immortality. It is your responsibility to shape the future of someone else because you spent the past 30 years shaping your own.
Being 18 is a lot of fun. I can assure you, it was even more fun to be 21. Your 20s will shape the rest of your life. My 30s will be a time to enjoy what I worked so hard to achieve in my 20s. If there is anything that I learned about you in the past 12 years, it's that you're going to be alright. You will learn to heal your own wounds and open your own doors. You will learn that there are many beautiful things that life has to offer if you keep your eyes open to the opportunity. You will always fear failure, but will be much more likely to take chances on things that are worth your while.
So, in closing, you were the person at 18 you were meant to be at 30. Look down at the stones he will step on and the path that you have paved to get to where I am today. Know that you can look back fondly, but you can't retrace your steps for undo what's been done. What lies before me is a road that has been laid by you and your actions. If there is anything that I wish you had done differently at 18, it would have been to respect yourself and appreciate yourself more. Don't be so hard on yourself because you are worth more than you give yourself credit for. It will take you a long time to learn that, but once you get there, it's called 30, and it's not that bad.
