like albert einstein once said...

do you remember thinking, when you were that little, that the time would never come when you'd be ready to move out of the house, away from mommy and daddy and the cute boy you never got the nerve to talk to? do you remember wondering what you'd look like, what you'd believe, what you would and would not have experienced, where you would have traveled, what you would have accomplished?

i used to write myself notes and hide them in my room. i'd come across them a few years down the line. they were always full of girlish dreams i'd forgotten, teacher's i'd come to no longer fear but respect, questions i will always wonder about the future me. i'd always read them, thinking to myself how bored i would be with the answers i so desperately wanted to know at the time. i think we just get used to our lives, and what happens and doesn't happen is not so much of a surprise as it might have been when the situation in question was initially pondered over.

i would love to be able to look at the twelve-year-old me and tell her that i turned out alright, that there's nothing majorly wrong with me, that adolescense will teach me not to cry about friends who aren't there and boys who don't care. i would love to sit down with her, tell her that black coffee isn't all that bad, that her writing may never improve but to never stop regardless, that in her notebooks the voice of a progressively more mature young woman is evident and grows to be more easily recognizeable. i would love to tell her about the things that will happen so she can prepare for them, avoid the things that will hurt her, haunt her, keep her up many nights for fear of making the wrong choice. with life comes regret; don't add extra. stress is inevitable; don't worsen it by dwelling.

there are so many things that go on inside my head sometimes. i always wanted to know about the future, but lately it's been the present that concerns me.

who am i?