Needless to say, this past year has really been a tough year, for everyone and not just me. I’m not who I was a year ago and if someone told me a year ago what I would be like today, I wouldn’t believe them for a second. Honestly, I’m glad I’m not the same person I was. I went through a lot of personal growth this past year and I am still growing. I don’t feel like I am ready to take on senior year because I didn’t have a normal junior and sophomore year. Part of the way I coped to handle this past year was by shoving it all into the back of my memory catalog and then drowning it out with Tik Tok so I don’t even remember much from this past year. I feel like taking a gap year would have been very helpful to my mental health in the fall semester, but then again I wouldn’t have grown as much as I have. Whenever I think of this past year the song Slipping Through My Fingers from Mamma Mia always pops into my head and makes me feel happy and sad, but most I think of myself having fun over the summer of 2020. Then I think about how this summer is my last summer as a child and I’ll be graduating and going to college and finding my own path. It makes me sad because there are things and people from my childhood I still want to hold on to. It’s hard to let go of what you are comfortable with because there is always a chance of you getting hurt, but isn’t that the point? You get hurt and you fail to learn and grow not to be safe and stay in a bubble your whole life. Yeah this year has been tough but I’m still here and I’m stronger because of it. I’ve learned so much and I want to learn more. I want to scrape my knees and get my hands dirty. I want to live life as much as I humanly can and not sit in an office all day or settle for a job because I’m scared of “getting hurt”. I never planned to get hurt of for a pandemic, but now that it’s happened might as well roll with the punches. Thank you, Me, for learning and getting hurt. I love you and accept you as you are and I understand you are still learning. Keep doing what you love and never be afraid of what other people think of you.

Yours truly,

Me