A Letter to Myself

Hello.

Let me remind you why you're doing this. Today, a friend told you that you can type up a letter to yourself and give it to a teacher, who will send it back to you in ten years. But you don't have the time to go get a stamp or an envelope right now. Maybe you'll print this out and bring it to her tomorrow. But maybe you won't. Besides, you have a spanish final to study for tomorrow at snack and senior singer rehearsal at lunch.

So you're writing to yourself on here. Because only your friends read this anyway and they will remind you. Only Michael and Cris. And maybe Iris. But that's okay, they're the ones who won't think that writing a letter to yourself for the world to see is strange.

What's happening right now. You were studying for a math final. It's tomorrow and you're scared that you will get a C in the class. You hate math so much. You have A+s in all of your humanities and language classes (and let's not even mention the arts) but you hate math and science. Last year you struggled just to earn a B in honors chemistry.

Do you remember Miss Bunch? Mrs. Moore? Mrs. Jelnick? Mr. Laino?

If not... how could you forget?

They're people who changed your life. You should remember.

Today we read replies to a few questions that we answered a year ago... well nine months ago. The questions were on art. And your writing was so pretentious that I wanted to murder you. I was so embrassed. I wonder if you will feel like that when you read this letter from 17 year old me when you're 27.

Does the world end in 2012? I guess if you're reading this, it hasn't. How was UCI? Where did you go to gradschool? Are you married, do you have children? Have you ever dyed your hair? Smoked a ciggarette?

Do you still write?

Here's a quote that I fell in love with today. I'm actually sitting here wiping tears away from my eyes because I just read it and realized how much I loved William Faulkner. When I read this quote I wanted to send him a letter. I wanted to tell him how much he changed my life.

Then I looked at wikipedia and it said that he died july 6 1962. Long before I was even born. And now I want to cry again when I think about that because he talked about how modern writers back then forgot to listen to the human heart, to the raw emotion, and how they forgot to write for the soul. And it hurts because now it's 2010, seventy years later and if modern writers had forgotten the heart then, and if we are the guardians really, cheesy as it may be, of the heart, then where is the heart?

Older Dasha, do you believe in love? I don't. I used to. Fervently. Now I think people just want to do obscene things to each other and pin pretty phrases to it. I don't want to. I really do love some people, my friends, my family... Maksim especially... but I can't love a guy. Maybe it's because I'm 17 and I'm still a kid, but what if Faulkner is right and I just don't have a heart?

Oh, I forgot the quote!

"I don't think anybody can teach anybody anything. I think that you learn it, but the young writer that is as I say demon-driven and wants to learn and has got to write he don't know why, he will learn from almost any source that he finds. He will learn from older people who are not writers, he will learn from writers, but he learns it — you can't teach it."

Did you learn what drove you? Or did you forget the word and how it made you feel? Let me remind you. It rips you open, leaves you raw and fixing yourself is the best possible feeling. Creation is so violent and beautiful.

You should write again.

Are you still self-conscious?

How is Maksim? He is so beautiful right now. He has the bluest eyes and a smile that can melt my heart.

Right now I'm listening to Jack's Mannequin and thinking about people I've dated because this song always comes on when I'm on dates. It's Dark Blue.

I'd rather not think about the people I've dated. I doubt you talk to any of them anymore. That's too bad though. Some of them were nice.

You better still talk to some people though. Michael better be your best friend and Julian as close as a brother. They make you who you are. Julian makes you laugh so hard you honestly think you'd die. He listens to your fairytales. He respects you. Michael... there is nobody like Michael anywhere. And then there's Cris. She's pretty amazing. Well, there's a lot of amazing people in your life.

You should study for math. It's almost 8.

I'm still drying my Faulkner tears. Because Faulkner is dead. 27. Where are you now? If they invented time machines or anything, send me a letter back ;)

Peace out.