April 26, 2013

Dear Angelynn,

I suppose I should apologize for that last entry being so short. But you know, that's life. It's all to short and suddenly it's over, and you can't help but wonder: where has all the time gone? What have I been doing with my time? When I look back on my life, am I proud of my past 16 years of existence? Or worse, just wonder how you manage to do every single thing wrong. And maybe you're not properly happy.

I suppose Dan Howell (danisnotonfire on YouTube. Please tell me that 20 years from now, Angelynn, YouTube still exists) would call this "existential crisis" and Angelynn, I think I'm permanently suspended over this realm of "existential crisis." I wonder Angelynn, if I can ever become you, you know? Am I walking in the right direction? Are the choices that I'm making right now, the choices that lead to a fantastic future, or am I screwing up my entire future right now? What am I supposed to be doing with my life right now, to get the life that I want later?

I feel like I'm blindly fumbling for the right path, just hoping that I'm making the right choices. But I'll never know until it's too late. By then, I suspect the damage is permanent.

There's no planning in real life. The future is so cloudy, so unreadable, so mysterious. I hate it. The overwhelming sense of not-knowing, because I like to know things, Angelynn. I like to have a plan and I like to know what causes what. I like order and I like knowing what happens next, because it gives me a sense of preparedness and I feel intelligent understanding the patterns of things and piecing together what should happen.

But in the future, what should happen and what will happen are two entirely different things. There's no way to predict what's going to happen. And even if you're successful right now, in highschool, with straight A's and a social life and free time to do whatever the heck you want... It says nothing about the future. You can study your butt of in high school, and be so so so smart, but that doesn't guarantee you a top spot in the horribly complex game of life.

Is life just unpredictable or is there some sort of hidden pattern to understanding this "game" that I'm just too stupid to understand? To me, both options sound equally terrifying.

Because I like knowing things far too much than I should, and I hate the fact that in the end, maybe, I'll die before I get where I want to.

As John Green so eloquently wrote, "You die in the middle of your life, in the middle of a sentence."

And Angelynn, I don't want to die in the middle. I like things to be finished. Sadly, I don't think that anyone can ever live a complete life. People might say "Oh, they lived a full life." But really, no they didn't, because there's an infinite number of things to do, places to visit, people to talk to. So many possibilities, and which ones are the right ones for me?

Angelynn, I know I'm going to die in the middle of something, everyone does. But please, let that middle between where I am and where you are, be filled with, maybe not the "right" decisions, but the "best" ones. The choices of adventure and living.

Because if I'm to die in the middle, might as well make the middle as interesting as possible. So I hope you stop obsessively planning out every second of your life, because you said it yourself: there's no way to truly understand what happens in life. Why not just let go? Why not stop letting your life control you, and you control your life for once? Stop worrying about the future before it consumes you. Just stop, and breathe and write the story of your own life by making choices.

You can do that, can't you?

xx

Angela