Dear Sixteen-Year-Old Me.

So, I always think it's useful to think of your past selves as different people to you, because you are fundamentally a different person than you were a year ago. You look different, you know more things, you know new people, and perhaps you have forgotten some people and changed your mind about topics. As a way of trying to better myself, I often think of my future self as my friend who I'm trying to do nice things for. Eat an apple and run more, because Future You could be healthier, and why aren't we going to help him out?

Maybe to crystallize who I am in the present moment, I often write letters to my past and future incarnations to try and figure out "who is Present Ruby?" I'd like to share a letter Eighteen (me when I was nearing the end of my Eighteenth year) wrote to Sixteen. Tomorrow I'll post the letter Eighteen wrote to Twenty and the letter Twenty replied with.

Dear Sixteen-Year-Old Me.

Hallo there Cosmo (for that is what you prefer to be addressed as). Through the miracle of time-travel, you should be opening this up on your sixteenth birthday. I am you, from the distant future of 2011. I find you both to be a stranger and an old friend and I expect that you feel the same way. Nonetheless, this letter will accomplish nothing if I don’t press on. I write to you now, as you still muse on, that going to university to be a lifetime away and that high school is pittance compared to it. Sorry to tell you this Cos’, but you’re absolutely right. In the first semester of the grand University of Auckland, where I’m studying English Literature and Film (you were right after all. Careers in medicine, ecology, and international espionage were all fruitless) I took in more data than you will take in for the next two years. By the way, the final Harry Potter movie is something you will never forget.

Today is possibly the quietest day you’ve had in a long time. I know you took a wander around the Hundred-Acre Woods on your own to be alone in your thoughts (spooky that I know, isn’t it? Hopefully, you’ll find the humour there in me saying that. Or rather, writing it) and other than to grumpily accept birthday cards and presents you won’t speak to anyone today. I understand that. You are having your sweet sixteenth and like any miserable little ant, you are choosing to spend it wallowing in pity. I know exactly what you are thinking because, as the Beatles so elegantly put it “I am he and he is me. Goo goo kachoo”. You are thinking it is going to be a lousy year. There is only going to be four episodes of Doctor Who this year. The love of your life has found you to be an insignificant speck on the carpet of dissonance. You still don’t know why you have to be Asian.

In fact, my good pal, this year is going to be the greatest turnabout of your life. It seems unbelievable but it’s perfectly true. The suicide attempts have stopped for good, theatre-sports is now under your teachings, and you don’t have to take health, hospitality or wear the green Lynfield College polo shirt with the variety of coloured undershirts. By the way, you may be interested to know that they’re changing the Lynfield College uniform in 2012. You may have a bit of a tantrum about that but there you are. You will finally be allowed into civilized society and wear the collar-and-tie the school offers. Of course, you won’t wear it as per normal. That’s too status quo for such a complete and utter moron (and I say that as kindly as I can) to you. You will wear a variety of belts, all of which won’t match with the tapered trousers you wear, and the collar of the shirt will either be flipped up vertically or the tips will point upwards slightly. Your tie will either be in a cravat, scarf or bow-tie (good call on the bow-tie by the way. You will find it’ll pay off later, not that anyone will ever f*cking believe you so don’t even try). You will wear long scarves which touch the ground on either end. I’m not sure what you’re trying to do Cos’! Look like some sort of poet and still abide by the uniform regulations? Or just show off how much you don’t fit in? You’re lucky you live in the past or I swear to God (oh, speaking of him, you’ll read The God Delusion later and swear off God completely, not that you ever had much in the way of religion, faith or imaginary friends) I would find you and slap some sense into you (but I wouldn’t because you are not a violent person and neither am I. You however, are completely unreasonable right now. If you cool off, things get better).

I’d talk about how the world changes and all that but you, being you, are so egocentric that you don’t care who becomes the United States of America President or what the economy will look like in a few months. Let me start off by saying that last year things ended on a pretty somber note. This year things improve dramatically. You will gain a new circle of friends inside of school, another out, and a stroll through B Block to L Block will always be peppered with people who know you (you may not know them. Your stupid antics mean you’ve become a bit of a court jester/black sheep. Your mileage will vary from person to person but they know who you are and that’s handy at times). You’re taking almost every subject you want except maths and you will end up skipping more maths than ever and going to see Toby. Drama and Media are definitely a hoot-and-a-half. Also, of course, English rocks after the first term.

By the end of this year, you will have robbed me of half my life savings. By the end of the year after, you will have robbed me of everything. The next year is the highlight of your high school calendar. You will have Mrs. Diaz teach you again for English, and occasionally berate you for folding paper claws in class out of handouts, and you will use your study periods to leave the grounds to smoke tobacco, order hot chips, and tidy Toby’s classroom for him. Not being eighteen is so long ago sometimes I forget the agony those couple of months will be from seventeen-and-a-half and eighteen.

Oh, one thing I should mention is that if there’s ever a time to cut down on the alcohol, it’s at the start of the year. Trust me, you don’t want to know why and I can’t quite remember.

Then you will be eighteen, and that’s the best one yet. I envy your journey a little, though you probably crave my experience, wishing it to just happen already but life is not something you want condensed but to be enjoyed at your leisure. English 107, Shadows, Doctor Who, Nokia, UniQ, and the Big Blue-Grey.

Be honest. Be truthful. Do not play silly mind games with those around you. I can’t stress these enough. The world you currently occupy is one that is relatively stable, so don’t rock the boat but rather apricate inside of it. You’re in for a blast, old son, and I know you’ll agree because I agree. I have left out many chunks of the time in between us because if you knew everything, it wouldn’t be any fun now would it?

Yours, with as much affection as a character can give to themselves,

Eighteen-Year-Old Me.

P.S. you may find this frustrating to read and that I’m just a doddering old fool and what could I possibly know about life? Well tell that to the twenty-year-old guy who’s in my position now, writing another self-indulgent letter to his past.