Dear FutureMe,

Dear FutureMe,

      Hi. I know you don't receive so many letters, especially from the future, especially from yourself. I know you're stressed out right now, perhaps reluctant to read a letter written in a foreign language, at this time of the year. But no worries, this is no novel with a complex device in it, more unlikely a question with answers to choose from. It's just another diary-ish flashback to yourself a year ago.

     This time of the year, you used to suffer from a deep consideration of your future. You were distressed from your favorite task of the semester - enrolling your courses. Yes, you've spent a lot of time today to run around, looking for the best combination you can take. You've also tried to escape the clichē of biology/chemistry major students by your openness to "weird" subjects, even if it meant taking more AP and English courses than international field students. Your major concerns were no longer whether you should have lunch or not, but what you were going to do for a living. Pretty depressing, huh? But it was a difficult question for a sixteen-going-on-seventeen.

     Sixteen-going-on-seventeen. I never thought such an age would ever come. Neither did I believe I would be so naive, and the young couple from Sound of Music were not wrong about being too naive and young to understand any of the topics they were discussing. The point here is that I don't believe that a seventeen-going-on-eighteen would be much more intelligent than herself a year ago. It isn't about that I have low expectations, but it's simple justification on how I'm not putting pressure on you, future self of me.

     As I hereby head back to the dorm after music festival, I sense how my high school life is facing the end at last. It is already your third time visiting the same concert hall. First time as a newbie of the audience, the second as a violinist of the orchestra, the last as 가야금 player of the class. Two years ago, you sat on that seat, filled with entusiasm toward your future and sunbaes who were performing. In the same red seat you sat, it strikes you that it's likely that this is the last time you will ever visit the place again. The position behind the red curtain make you feel somewhat nervous and hyper at the same time.
   
     You were always an introvert, but that never stopped you from performing. On stage, you always changed - to an artist painting a scene of the play, coloring it around as you will. No one could ever find the look of the fragile heart of a girl, whose eyes were full of tears because one of the teachers got angry because her voice was too small. A random flashback to 10th grade by a conversation with your history teacher, but I am sure you remember them by your heart. And all the performances you had, including what it took to give such a show. The first talent show you ever had. The very play you designed with your friends on your 5th grade. The very first winning of the competition that my orchestra always lost, which was brought by you as the concertmaster, though it required you to practice a few hours every 6 am. With all these memories aroused, I wonder what you are feeling now. Perhaps you've forgotten them for too long time.

     Though you may not have realized, there are more things you have achieved during your life. To begin with, you have survived. For seventeen years. Despite the numerous attempts world has made to threat you. Secondly, you've completed your education. A lot of people quit or cannot afford to continue their pursuit of knowledge, which shows you are both lucky and talented perhaps. The list can go on forever, which is the reason the letter omits the rest. On the stage and under it, so many things happened.

*Note. This is a letter to myself, written on 11/18/19. Via site www.futureme.org, anyone can freely set delivery to future self.