Dear Mason,

I know you always wished I would come from the future and guide you. That I would show up—this familiar stranger—and give you a hug, tell you it’s all going to be okay, and you would believe it. I know it’s going to devastate you to learn that I never come. You’re left staring at the faces of strangers who look moderately like you, wondering if they’re you from the future, older, wiser, more attractive, more mature, watching over you or waiting to console you. It doesn’t matter though, because you’ll make it. I am proof. Every passing day, you become that proof.

You will learn that looking to “future you” is not where you should draw your motivation: it’s little you. It’s the fourth grade you who wrote that message on Canvas, congratulating you on graduating high school, eight years before you’d read it again. It’s the past me—but future you—who let his anxiety consume him.

You will learn from your mistakes like these. You will be inspired by who you thought you’d become. Even your wishes for future you will change, but that’s part of the process.

You’ll stop trying to send messages across time to your past self, with urgent instructions on how to improve your life, and start appreciating the present.

Surfing will become an important part of yourself. Even though you’re not very good, it’s a sense of stability amongst conflicting identities.

Nature becomes a place where you can find peace from a complicated world and increasingly stressful life.
Friends will come and go, with a consistent few you can always rely on. The very people you thought you were better than, that were weird, will become those you admire and some of your best friends.

There’s some experiences you will hate, but future you will come to understand as necessary. I won’t share them because you wouldn’t listen. Just like how future you didn’t listen to Mom and Dad about lacrosse or friends or, for that matter, much of anything. Even me telling you wouldn’t help. You need to live it because you’re so darn stubborn.

Your overthinking doesn’t get much better, but there’s some comfort you gain from understanding that you have certain flaws, and that is okay.

There’s ups and downs, both on the extreme ends of the spectrum, but it all evens out to a life you learn to appreciate.
It’s all going to be okay, Mason.

-Older, Wiser, More Attractive, More Mature You