Dear Past Me, Dear Future Me

Dear Past Me,

I have to warn you, you’re going to change a lot in the next few years. Right now I know life is sweeping you up and jerking you around—even today I feel the whiplash from the chaos that came in the wake of your sickness and everything it prevented you from doing. And I know that you’re caught up in the existential crisis of that enormous challenge and suffering, so I am writing you to say that life will become normal again. You’ve always wanted to go to Exeter, ever since Dad’s stories of his time there filled your head with images of freedom and friends and frothy milkshakes at “the grill.” I know you have applied to Exeter this year to be a new lower, and your application was sent in a little late. I will tell you right now—you won’t get in as a new lower. They won’t even look at your application and you will be heartbroken. But this will turn out to be the greatest gift in your life, Alexandra. Your heart will break and crack open to new experiences, and you will ride this wave of disappointment straight to Italy, to the cure of your chronic illness, until it gently brings you back right where you are meant to be—at Exeter—when you are truly ready for it. For without all these things—the sickness, the rejection, the six months spent re-learning the art of living in Italy—you wouldn’t be able to appreciate going back to school, doing homework or understanding the importance of taking care of yourself. Without all these struggles you wouldn’t learn how to give up, when to tuck away your pride and put yourself to bed long before your homework is done. Without your time in Italy, you wouldn’t know how to bring joy to the bitter New Hampshire winters, how to prepare big pasta dinners and invite everyone you know to eat because you’ve learned that love is spread through conversation and the slow filling of stomachs. Without these experiences, you would think of college as the next step, not something to be enjoyed. You might take yourself too seriously, hang on to every criticism, every silence after you speak at the Harkness table, every bad grade and think that there is something wrong with you, that you musn’t be vulnerable, even if that will help you learn. If you hadn’t gone through missing ninth and tenth grade, if you hadn’t gone from being the smartest kid in your grade in middle school to struggling with Ms. Girard in her classroom over derivatives, you wouldn’t know how to admit that you are having a hard time, you wouldn’t know how to ask for help and you wouldn’t know how to admit defeat. You will grow into all of these good qualities, learn to be more at peace with yourself and the mysterious workings of the world, but you should know that not all changes will be for the better. You’ll start to talk with big words and try to hide the bits of Dad’s Revere accent that have crept into your speech over the years. Your parents will make fun of you for this, and every time you go on a vacation it will take you a few days to start to act normal again, to eschew precision for emphasis in your words, to use casual language, to stop checking each sentence before it leaves your mouth. Your best friend from home will brag to all her friends that you go to the “Harvard of high schools,” will insist you’re incredibly smart even though you think you’re just normal, that invisible barrier will form between you and people from home, and you will resent it. You’ll be caught between the somewhat unrealistic world of free food and sparkling facilities, of correct grammar and the consideration of larger concepts and the world of beat up cars, the small-town mindset, the simplicity of Williamsburg, Mass. Just remember, Zan, you’re undercover in this world—in it but not of it. Despite the phone calls where you’ll beg your parents to leave, when it comes time to do so, you’ll want nothing more than to stay. I know it’s tough right now, but hang in there, kid. There’s a whole new world that awaits you at Exeter.

Dear Future Me,

I’m sure you’ve changed, I’m sure you’ve learned and grown and moved on from Exeter. Even so, I want to stretch across the divide between us, and offer you some memories of your time here to hold onto … Don’t forget the crew of new uppers who shared this transition with you, bound together by the newness of this place. Don’t forget those first nights when you didn’t know how to spend your time, when you shared life stories in the hallway of the Academy Center or sang “Billionaire” on the marble steps of the academy building, surrounded by the characters who would work their way into your heart and your days. Don’t forget the first time you walked to the convenience store and bought the one box of spaghetti and one dented can of stewed tomatoes on its bare shelves, the first time you collected a bunch of friends in the basement of the church and prepared a meal, urged on by the laughter and voices of hungry friends, pleased by the sound of clicking forks against plates when the meal was served. Don’t forget the school-funded trip to New York City to see two operas with your newfound friends, waiting half asleep in line at 7 a.m. to sign up. Don’t forget the bus rides there and back where we bridged the gaps between us, how we fell asleep in the operas and then made our way around the city in our fancy clothes, how we ate Shake Shack burgers by the fountain. Don’t forget how a close friend, after he had overheard a senior asked you to prom last year, slipped an envelope with a check that would cover the cost of the ticket into your backpack after class because he knew you couldn’t afford it. Don’t forget about the Saturday spent researching for your 333 paper in the library and all the hours that led to 22 miraculously cohesive pages, how you wrote two senior meditations about two aspects of your life you had never examined before. Don’t forget the time this year as a proctor when you walked in on two new lowers who were scared and close to tears, when you sat on the floor in their room and echoed their sobs with your own, when you held each other and cried and somewhere in that wet, tangled mess forgot why you were crying in the first place. Don’t forget the presence of so many incredible adults in your life—Dana, Langdell’s custodian, who you talked about the deep stuff with, whose soul you immediately recognized as searching like your own. Mr. Smith, your adviser, with whom you share a love for the Godfather movies, who was open and honest with you and supportive, who brought you to the best pizza restaurant around for your eighteenth birthday. Mr. Kim who took over as your adviser fall term, who shares your love of good food and brought you to a bakery where you sampled flaky pastries baked with love. Ms. Dolan, your college counselor, who could have insisted you apply to American schools, but who instead supported you fully in your quest to explore the world and religion in a gap year, to think about Italian college, to find a future you are excited about. Mr. Reichlin who dedicated two terms to you and your love of Italian, with whom you had fascinating conversations in the most beautiful language in the world about culture, Italy and Nanni Moretti movies. Your dorm faculty who made you laugh weekly in fac/proc meetings, who were honest with you and treated you like an adult, who welcomed you into their homes and indulged your desire to talk about life, who cared for the Langdell girls as much as you did. 

Don’t forget the classes that opened your brain up again, the few times when teachers let the conversation stray from their subject to life in general, to our fears and our hopes, the times when sitting around the Harkness table you felt like a full human being interacting with other full human beings. Don’t forget Middle School Mentors, in which your greatest accomplishment was getting reserved little Pavlo to turn his sharp blue eyes towards you and smile, where you coaxed him out of his shell until the two of you engaged in a sticking-out-your-tongue war. Don’t forget the goosebumps you got every time you sang a harmony in Fermatas and In Essence. Don’t forget your golf coach and his expressions (“You’re killin’ me”), the long rides to away matches filled with descriptions of crazy golf shots and off key singing. Don’t forget those spur-of-the-moment experiences: watching the sunrise with friends on the dock wrapped in blankets, the bike ride adventure that took you to the bowling alley for pool and arcade games, the swims in the river on sweaty spring days. Don’t forget the deep talks over tea after Buddhist Meditation, the brief moments of peace at Evening Prayer, the love felt in each hug after Rev’s church service, the E/a games when you felt the unity of a thousand breathing bodies jumping together, hoping together. Don’t forget the tough moments, the dark moments, the times where you were forced to see the ugliest parts of yourself, all the friends who got you through your time here.

For better or for worse, this place has edged its way into your life and your heart. You now have your own stories about freedom, friends and frothy milkshakes at “grill.” So the only question that remains is: Will you send your 11 future children to Exeter?