Dear Student,

In case you don’t remember who I am, these are your dreams writing to you. I am your passions, your aspirations. I am the warm and golden concepts that you think of one day and can’t stop thinking about until you dream up a path to make me a reality.

Or at least, I am what used to be your dreams, until you dropped me.

I knew what was going happen after the first five seconds of you staring at those websites. You were paralyzed by those college statistics and acceptance rates.  It was a pretty unfair deal, trading the paralysis you used to get when thinking about me, frozen in excitement and curiosity, for the stunned paralysis you now get in fear of the future.

I saw it all happening. I knew that it was coming. When you started treating life like a competition, you forgot about how much you cared about me. When you got more and more stuck in a web of expectations, you neglected the joy I bring you. When you thought you had to change your mind, change your priorities, you dropped me.

I’m sure you didn’t want to let me go; you just thought you had to. You took too many AP classes either because you thought that would get you into college or because everyone else was doing it. You packed your days with half-hearted activities that left you too exhausted to think about me when you were finally done.

I know you did this in part because you were afraid. Not only were you afraid that you weren’t good enough because of the heavy expectations around you, you were afraid that I wasn’t good enough to help you fit into this world.

I’m trying to tell you that there is no line to cross to be “good enough.” I’m trying to convince you to let me stay.

I really don’t ask for much. I know that it’s only fair that you have your priorities. I know that I can’t always come first. I just need you to at least keep me at the back of your head, allowing me to cheer for you and give you something to work toward, something to look forward to in the midst of stress.

But having priorities doesn’t mean you have to drop me and push yourself to unreasonable levels. If you keep trying to make yourself look better on paper, that’s all you will be. Paper.

It’s not too late to take me back. I am and always will be a part of you. Sure, the rough draft version of me, your very first dream of becoming a racecar driver or a professional thumb-wrestler when you grew up, doesn’t really define you.

But I exist to be altered. I am the closest witness to your coming of age story and the partner in crime to your personal development. I am here for you to change me, not to forget me.

Now that I’m gone, where will you go? How can you possibly develop without your dreams?

When we were together, I helped you stay afloat above a passionless world. It hurts me now to watch you down on the ground in that dull cycle until you become one of them, someone who lives without caring what the next day brings or where they’re going in the future.

Your body will age. You’ll advance out of high school and onto college. You’ll float through your life. But you won’t grow. I won’t be there to water the excitement inside of you or to feed passion into your brain.

I only want the best for you; take me back and we can make a great life together.

You can look to me when times are tough, and I can give you something to look forward to. As you develop me into your ideal future, you can develop into your beautiful self.

Take me back and I promise you can be complete again. And trust me, together we will find something that you could never genuinely encounter without me: happiness.