Dear future me, I don’t know exactly when you’re going to read this, you might read this in a few months, or several years and perhaps you’ve gotten your masters in psychology. Either way I’m writing this to give you a snapshot into what your life was like the beginning of your junior year. I’m gonna talk about some of the physical things you carried with you every day as well as some of the emotions, memories, and people you thought about every day.

The first thing is a thing that I don’t really use on a daily basis but the times that I do need it I better have it. It’s my wallet. It's a simple bi-fold wallet that is themed after one of my favorite video games, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the wild. When you open it up it seems like a normal wallet, and in a way it is, but if you take a closer look at some of the things it contains you realize that this wallet has some sentimental values. On the surface you see my state ID, my debit card, and a few other gift cards. I also have every one of my school ID’s from 6th grade and it's interesting and amusing to see how much I have changed. I have most of the tickets from concerts, movies, and sport things I’ve been to. I say sport things because one of them was the Harlem Globetrotters and it's not really a sporting event as it is a show. The oldest thing in my wallet is a ticket to my first concert. I remember it well, the body shaking bass filling up the entire arena, the vibrant lights emanating from the stage and other specific parts of the arena, and my favorite, the feeling of crowd surfing. Hundreds of hands all propelling you forward and getting jostled about all the while your getting close and closer to the stage.
The second thing I carry isn’t physically with me but it have it on display at home on my desk. It sits on the far right in the back and it's a simple white candle about a foot tall wrapped in a purple and green bandanas and has an Ellie badge from up pinned in the center. It’s been lit before but only once. It’s a strange object to the unknowing eyes but for those who have been in marching band knows the value of this object. I aquired this candle my freshmen year at marching band initiation and I remember that night so well. All the freshmen were marching in a single file up the hill, unknowing and uncertain of what was going to happen next. We make it to the top of the hill and and before we realized it, our seniors were running out of forest, screaming, with dark ominous clothing and black facepaint. We marched back down the hill towards the hill towards a bonfire, then we stopped and all faced the fire, tendrils of flames illuminating the faces of seniors and freshmen. The seniors talked about their stories and how they were going to miss marching band and before I knew it I was bawling my eyes out and shortly after my senior was crying too. They passed out candles to everyone, freshmen got white and seniors got red, and then the seniors got their candles lit and then turned around and lit their freshmens candles. It was a very emotional night. Later that night around ten o’clock my senior took me outside. Her name was Sara and she played the same instrument as me. Even though I was a freshmen and she was a senior I was already a few inches taller than her. Outside of the dining hall and we sat down on a bench. I had figured she just wanted to go outside because it was getting pretty loud but I couldn’t have been more wrong. She started to say some words she had been rehearsing all week and I couldn’t hear most of it because I just started crying even more as she gave me the Ellie badge from UP. She pinned it on my shirt and then we embraced for what felt like hours, all the while I was still bawling my eyes out and wetting her shirt with my tears. They were tears of happiness and of all the amazing things that happened that night.

This next item is a thing that carries me. It gave me some independence and allowed me to control where and when I could be at things. Even though my car was made in 2002 it was pretty reliable got got me from point A to point B without breaking down. It feels a lot bigger on the inside than it actually is while at the same time feeling compact and cozy. I’m driving between places it’s become almost of a second home. It's got leather seats with heated seats in the front that make the winter morning drives to school a little more bearable. It also has a car starter for those morning where I can’t bring myself to go outside unless I have to. The rear-view mirror has some liquid suspended in between the mirror and a layer of glass that once served a purpose of helping see in the dark but no more does it work like it’s supposed to. There is als a little LED that tells me which direction I’m facing but it also doesn’t work. Dangling from my mirror is my school parking pass, it’s green with the numbers 220 printed in bold black numbers. I don’t keep much in my car; there is some paper towels for anything that gets spilled, and it happens a lot not surprisingly because of how big of a klutz I am. I also have some blankets in the back for anytime I might need them. In the front under my radio there is a little cubby that I keep some old receipts that I need to throw out already and some spare change that I toss when there whenever I acquire it; I hate carrying around change in my pockets.

Finally the last thing I carry is all my emotional baggage and stress. This is by far the most complex one but we have to start somewhere so let's start with the mix of emotions that is me. I’m usually a pretty chill person but sometimes I let my anger get the better of me and I snap at people, rage filling my face as it turned into a stony frown of disapproval. However it takes a lot to make me angry and I try not to get angry if I can help it. I also have a great love for all of my friends to the point where I would do anything for them. I have four people that I would consider best friends and I know that nothing is going to break the friendship between these people. The next is my stress. Currently during the fall of 2017 I’ve got very little free time. Everyday except fridays I have marching band and then about 6:30 pm I have robotics everyday except friday. Tuesdays and Thursdays I have a dual enrollment psychology class and those days suck the most because I get home from marching band i get to do anything I need to do before leaving to go to class then robotics and I usually don't get home until eight or nine o’clock, then I still have homework after that. Then on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays I have to work at my job because I’m trying to save up for a trip to Japan and Korea with one of my best friends. Sometimes I wish I could drop something in my schedule to have more free time to hang out with friends but at the same time it’s all stuff I want to do and I love doing it all. It’s only my first year in robotics but I’m already getting myself involved and I’m a  part of the event planning committee.

So yeah, this is a little snapshot into my life at the moment. It’s bound to change at some point because things are always changing in my life, like the phases of the moon. My life isn’t a bad I’m always wishing it was better in certain aspects. Sometimes I wish I wasn't as busy but I love everything I do and I don’t want to give everything up. Anyways, I hope the future you make for yourself is better than what your life is now.

Best wishes, Ben