to the girl eternally 17 in memory
As it goes, you're not going to have all the answers right away. Rather, you'll find them along the way—on that train ride home from school one night when it took everything in you not to cry, and in that kind classmate who taught you how to ride the bus to school for the first time one rainy morning when the train broke down. And sometimes you won't either, but you don't have to all the time anyway. You won't find it in the first obstacle you thought would be your last. You won't find it in the last person you thought would be your first.
But what I want you to know right away is that you'll always, always get better. You'll work the hardest you've ever had in an instant, and even harder after that. I wouldn't want to call your problems at the moment small, but it's useful to remember you'll grow bigger than them in no time, geared for taller mountains and deeper oceans. Twenty-five-year-old us would tell me the same thing, and I'm sure seventy-year-old us would be a giant amongst most men. Soon enough, you'll learn to always take your coffee black.
Your heartbreak will pass, and so will the next, and the next one, and the next one. Don't cast your heart in porcelain the next time around, but don't cast it in stone either. So instead cast it in what it is—muscle, strong and self-sustaining, yet pliant, alive. I haven't been around long enough to have survived more than two of these, but I read only recently that it takes at least three to truly grow up. I read too that you'd have to let people leave when they have to—not because you hate them, not because you no longer care, but because you'll find more room to grow when you have space to stretch your legs and air to fill your lungs.
Don't worry though, you'll find some things won't change. We'll still cry over cartoons mom thinks we're too old for. We'll still struggle to rekindle our hunger for books our ten-year-old self kept for herself. Being "popular" or "cool" will stay irrelevant, but maybe our twelve-year-old self would need reminding time and time again. Our best friend will retain her top spot on our Facebook chatbox. Rainy days will always make us feel the same beautiful kind of sad.
Keep trusting in me because I'll definitely take care of you, make you proud, reach for those dreams that were once too high up for you. Remember that you have loved, you are loved, you will be loved.
Run a mile down that dirt-worn path, shake the dust off your shoes, then start again. Write those letters, decorate them in your most precious stamps, send them on their ways, then start again. Etch these things to mind in tender, vibrant pastels, blow away what you don't need, and start again.
Love always,
the 20-year-old in transit