DEAR 22,
I miss you.
You brought a presence with you that I haven’t felt since you left and 23 came around. Being 25, I still mourn the loss of you.
You made life so simple and joyous, and sometimes I really do wonder if we are even the same person. I mean, aren’t I suppose to be older and wiser than you, 22? Isn’t three years of life suppose to make me grow? But maybe that’s it: maybe I grew up and realize just how much life isn’t always easy-going and fun like we dreamed.
22, I wish I remember how you got so happy. I mean, 21 was so shitty, and I just wish I documented how you were able to turn things around and make 22 as amazing as it was.
Was it the routine of being a college student without any worries in the world besides getting good grades and graduating on time? Was it waking up in the morning, feeling like I had a purpose in life? Was it because I had dreams that I thought by 25 I’d accomplished that kept me alive? Was it the love I had felt intensely? Man, was it the amazing friends I loved so much that I never missed a day of acting class because they brought so much joy into my life?
It’s everything about you, 22.
It was your strength to keep loving everything and everyone around you. It was your ability to take your weaknesses and still shine through them because you were strong. You were able to trust others so willingly, be yourself so willingly to people who felt like they were a part of your life for years. You felt free, you felt carelessness for the negatives of the world, you made every single day matter even when you felt sadness.
You are the person I should be at 25, and yet here we are: me looking up to you.
I don’t know what happened, 22, and I’m sorry that I’m not the person you expected me to be. Shit, you looked up to me: A Master’s graduate, doing what I loved to do, being happy with so many supportive friends around me, living my life how it’s supposed to be. At 22, you understood that life sometimes happens and plans don’t always go as planned, but man, you probably never thought we’d be here at this moment.
I know that in the future, I will be able to find you again during the moments I feel extreme happiness. I will see glimpses of you when I’m finally feeling put together again; when I’m finally feeling like myself in this damn body. There will be a time in the future when another version of me will outshine the happiness you once carried, there will be a time in the future that I will understand that 25 had to feel this way and go through this, just how you understood that you had to go through 18, 19, and 21 in order to be strong.
Future me will find friends in the future who will come to your rescue, like the ones that rescued you towards the end of 21 and flourished into 22. Future me will be able to trust others once again and let other’s in permanently without feeling like people have a motive with their kindness. Future me won’t feel as alone as 25 does currently because maybe future me will have a better understanding of what it means to be their own best friend during times like this.
I hope future me is a more grown-up version of you, 22, and I hope I get to meet her soon.
But for now, I’m missing you, 22. Everything that you embody is what I miss the most.
YOURS TRULY, 25.
Letters From Liz. 