Dear Future Me,
If you’re reading this, it’s been five years since that weird, wobbly September of 2020—and I bet you barely remember what it felt like to wake up to a desk covered in hand sanitizer and Zoom links. Let me jog your memory: right now, I’m 16, sitting in my bedroom in Portland, Oregon, with my window cracked just enough to smell the rain. My laptop’s open to Ms. Carter’s AP Bio class (she keeps freezing mid-sentence when she talks about cell membranes), and there’s a half-eaten peanut butter toast on my nightstand—because even a pandemic can’t make me stop skipping breakfast properly.
You remember how this fall was supposed to be? Homecoming dance posters in the hallway, Friday night football games where Mia and I would share a giant popcorn, even that annoying first-day-of-school photo Mom makes us take in front of the maple tree. Instead? We do “spirit week” over Google Meet (I wore a neon shirt yesterday and only three people noticed), football’s canceled, and Mom’s photo was just me in sweatpants, holding a mask like it’s a prop. Last week, I facetimed Mia and we tried to bake chocolate chip cookies—we burned them because we got distracted talking about how weird it is that we haven’t hugged since March. She cried a little, and I did too, but we pretended it was the smoke from the oven.
I guess the weirdest part isn’t the masks or the online tests—it’s how much this year made me stop and look. Like, last month Dad took me to drop off groceries at the hospital for the nurses, and I saw a woman in scrubs hug her kid through a glass door. I thought about how Grandma lives alone in Seattle, so we call her every Sunday night now—she taught me how to knit a scarf over FaceTime, and it’s lumpy, but she says it’s her favorite. Ms. Carter told our class once that “hard things don’t just take things away—they leave stuff too.” I didn’t get it then, but now? I know she means the way I finally learned to cook oatmeal without burning it, or how Mia and I write each other letters (actual paper ones!) because texting feels too easy. I even started a journal—you still have that, right? The one with the sunflowers on the cover?
Now I’m sitting here wondering: What’s your life like in 2025? Are you in college? Did you get into that environmental science program you ranted about last year (the one where you said you wanted to study how to keep cities healthy)? Do you and Mia finally get to take that road trip to California we planned—you know, the one where we said we’d camp on the beach and eat In-N-Out every day? Is Mom still making you take that stupid maple tree photo? And Grandma—does she still knit? Is she healthy?
Do you even wear masks anymore? When you go to a coffee shop, can you just sit inside without checking the CDC guidelines first? Do you ever walk into a classroom and think, “Wow, I used to dream about this”? I hope you do. I hope you don’t take small things for granted—like hugging a friend, or sitting in a crowded library, or even Ms. Carter’s terrible Zoom freezes.
If things are hard for you in 2025—if college is stressful, or you’re missing home, or you just had a bad day—remember this: You made it through 2020. You made lumpy scarves and burned cookies and cried over FaceTime, but you didn’t break. That version of you? She’s still here, cheering you on.
Save me a spot on that California beach, okay? And tell Mia I still owe her a batch of non-burned cookies.
With way more hope than anxiety,
16-Year-Old You
September 18, 2020