In 2006 , as a wild hippy child, i left the home I had and made with my high school friends and mentors and left my activists buddies singing kumbaya in Union Square. I was embarking down the college path at a four year university. I never wanted to go to college. I want to join the peace corp or read to kids in the hospital. But my high school mentors lite a flame inside myself that yearned for knowledge and deep down i knew I would eventually WANT to go. So i entered the big corporate college and i loved it and hated it at the same time. It was so impersonal. It wasn’t interactive and intimate. It was serious all the time. Where was the passion? Where was the love? I loved the material, learning. But i didn’t love the application and deliverance of it. I felt so stifled. As a freshman and part of an honors program we had a mentor class once a week. The teacher who was teaching the class for the very first time had us write a letter on the last day of class. A letter to ourselves. Future selves. She told us to write to ourselves about our feelings now and say whatever we have to say. We them sealed them up and she promised in four years ( when we were supposed to graduate) she would mail them out.
I left that college after the first year and entered the community college i graduated with an AA from in 2010. So it was a huge surprise when i opened my mailbox and found a letter with a letterhead from my former four year school. Even bigger surprise and found the letter I had all forgotten about. I copy and pasted the letter from my facebook notes:
Letter to Myself Four Years Ago
I wrote a letter to myself four years ago and received it in the mail today July 23rd, 2010. This is it typed up- as the way it appears, no editing or changes or omissions.
November 17th 2006
Dear Tasha;
Hey girl! If you are reading this- you did it! You finally made it. I know you thought you wouldn’t but you pulled through hommie. Your strong.
As of now…your crazy…do you remember? Sit back and listen to yourself a couple years ago….
College is killing my soul. My English teacher told me implicitly I’m too creative for English while my political science teacher told me I’m too political. I really doubt myself right now. Everything I do is shot down- harshly. I got an A in women studies. English I’m pushing c’s…psych… don’t even go there… Not to mention my math situation. I feel like I put myself into this mouse hole and have no way out. I feel the problem is me. Maybe I need to change. But I feel like I’m betraying myself. I don’t want to conform.
But I’ll find a way. Not for anyone else- but myself. Today is a new day. This semester was a challenge. Hopefully, I come out of it stronger yet still Tasha. I hope if your reading this your still Tasha an didn’t compromise yourself because if you did in the end you didn’t make it, you failed horribly.
I love you girl. We’re just not made to fit into this society of confined thinking. But together- with my love- everything will be okay. A lesson can be learned from anything. I’ve learned a lesson from this drama. Even if we fail- we still win if we gained from it. I believe in you. I hope all is well. I hope your still bringing sexy back! Yeah! I love you mi amor. Things are hard but I have faith in you-in me- but mostly importantly in peace. I’ll see you in a few years.
Love
Tasha
P.s. Chicken noodle soup!
Peace, Love, Happiness
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(End of copy and pasted, back to present day writing)I remember being in tears when i wrote it, and being in tears when i read it. Both sad and happy. I was sad because i didn’t graduate a four year school with a BA. But, deep down i retained most of myself. I didn’t coform. I lost so much through those years. Friendships and other relationships. I thought at times i was selling my soul. I cried and surrived heartache. But, in the end I was proud of myself. When i read this letter, my spirit cried in appericataion for the recgonition of the struggle. I cried for the struggle. But, I also cried because i came out of it “still Tasha”. That’s what matters most to me with whatever I may do. I can compromise on some things, as long as i’m still me. I never want to compromise on me.
SO, for this challenge. We have to write a letter from our present self back into the past. I keep thinking ” my past self had such a purer sense and purer spirit what can i possibly say to her?” And that’s when i realized. I can say just that.
Decemeber 18th 2012 12:12 AM
Dear Tasha;
Ello my dear! I’m writing to you from the future. Put your eyes back in your head, don’t act so suprised. If i remember correct, our motto at this time was “go with the flow” so just go with it.
I’m supposed to write to you and give you advice you direly need and tell you why to heed this advice. I started naming numerous things and then backspaced and erased it multiple times. Oh yeah, you type on the computer now. Rarely hand write. Never thought that would happen would ya?
Alright stop giving me that look, i got lazy to hand write. I’ve been meaning to start using the journal again. You remember the journal? It’s still holding together, our story contained.
Back to the point, you have ,we have, overcame so much. Obstacle after obstacle. I want to tell you don’t do this, don’t do that. But i realize now, we grew and learned from each experience. I wish i could say we would still make it, still be the same in spirit, without those harsh realities and experience. But, i don’t think we would be. I realize now, that we, that I, remain so strong because you were so strong. Your faith in your spirit. It was like that of a child, innocent and naive and pure. You are so pure of heart and you spirit is so strong that even all these years later it’s what gives me the strength to get through.
So my advice to you, is keep that spirit alive. Keep it close. Follow it always. It has not failed us yet.
There is one thing though, when the time comes when you will need to be a caretaker for someone you love, don’t doubt yourself. They count on you. You are strong. And buy some binders! Damn how i wish i would of bought some binders from the beginning. Your life will be SO much easier if you had binders. Get binders! Horde them! Put all paper work inside them. Get those little sticky notes, labels. The whole nerd mother load. Trust me. You’ll save yourself major headaches and time. I wish I could send a staples gift card back in time too.
This is not sucky advice. Stop making that face. Just get the binders. You’ll be forever grateful.
Trust me, you are a great person and I know you struggle greatly. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Your spirit is strong. When my dwindles I just have to close my eyes and my younger self, you, recharges it. Follow that heart and that little spirit no matter of the loss and the hurt. Everything happens for a reason. We just have to figure out the reason.
When we meet again in the future, you will know the reason.
Hold that pureness close and keep it in your heart. It is a gift and a weapon.
With all my love
Tasha.
Corner of Confessions 