Today is my birthday. I’m officially 24. And what better way to celebrate my birthday than by taking a lil’ stroll down memory lane. When I was in grade 10, we were tasked with the assignment of writing a quick letter to our future selves to open on the last day of grade 12. Like the die-hard keener I am, I wrote the letter and promptly forgot about it for the next three years. Then, on the last day of grade 12, those letters were handed back to us and we got to read the thoughts and ramblings of our grade 10 selves.I liked this concept so much that I decided to also write a letter on the last day of grade 12 to open when I graduated university.
Well, that day has come. I graduated university with a BComm back in April of 2018 but it took me a couple of months to actually remember that I had this letter hidden at the very bottom of my dresser’s drawer where there was no chance of anyone finding it. It was quite a surprise when I was cleaning out that drawer and I came across this envelope. My fingers ached to open it immediately but I suppressed that urge because I wanted to read it in the right frame of mind.
So here is a video of me opening both the letter to my grade 12 self and the letter to my post-university grad self. As I explain in the video, I felt like I had such higher expectations for what should have been in these letters. But, at the end of the day, I was only 15 and 18 when I wrote them. I was still struggling to find exactly who I was. So yes, this video is very anti-climatic but it’s also very telling of what kind of person I was at those ages.
As I’ve said time and time again on this blog, growing up is such a weird thing but I am so lucky to have a online diary of sorts to record all these things in my life. My 15 year old self who wrote that letter in grade 10 would have never imagined that her life would turn out this way. But that’s the magic of that letter. You think you have everything figured out. You think you know where your passions lie and how you want your future to unravel but then something can into your life and change how you view everything. And that’s exactly what this blog did to me. In grade 10, I didn’t even know what a blog was. But then, one short year later, it turned my whole world around. It made me rethink everything. Suddenly, being in school plays and becoming a doctor wasn’t the right path for me. And my blog really helped me see that. And so, for that, I am so thankful.
When I’m Older, I’ll be whoever I want.
Love,
Tay
