Answering Journal Entries

This is based on journal entries I wrote as a teenager and my responses to them today. It's nothing wonderful in terms of prose. This is just a cathartic exercise for me. I enjoyed the prompt, and while I could have written fiction in response to it, I had the urge to write to my younger self. My younger self thought I would write back, and now I can say that I have. Names are not real names of people in the first letter.

Dear Future Me,

How are you? What did you major in? Are you happy? I’m not always happy. Sometimes, when I’m in a crowd of people I don’t know, my throat closes, and I can’t breathe. My heart beats about ninety miles per minute, and my chest aches. The ache spreads out to my arm, and my brain tells me I’m having a heart attack. At sixteen. Google says it’s possible. Don’t trust Google, right? Or, don’t research on Google. It only tells you the worst: that you’re dying.

Anyway, does that go away? I started taking anxiety medicine because, apparently, I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Or, we do. Do we? Panic Disorder, too, which granny had or has. I don’t know. She said she takes medicine for it and has since she was in her early twenties. I guess it runs in the family. Not a big surprise. Our family is pretty crazy. I can’t believe daddy let Noah move out of the house. Now we’re stuck here, alone, because Liam’s just a kid. A little kid. 

Are we happy? Forget that question. I already asked it. Are we still friends with Emily? Vivienne? Catelyn? Anyone? Friends are so hard to keep, but I think I’ve finally found a good group. 

See you in the future,

Paige (aka You)

***

Dear Younger Me,

I wish I could send this to you so that you could read the words I’m writing. Time travel hasn’t been invented yet, though you didn’t ask about that. Were we not hopeful for it? About the closest I got to enjoying Sci-Fi was Star Wars, though I remember enjoying the Star Trek movies. But to answer your questions:

I’m fine. I switched majors several times because I had no idea what I wanted to do. Ridiculous to expect a child freshly out of high school to know what they want to do with the rest of their life while guidance counselors and family members are breathing down your neck about what they think you should do. Wow. Is that a run-on sentence or not? I’m going with not, but it’s long. Happy is subjective, but I’m happier than you were. I think. As far as I can remember, I’m happier. And, uh, I still use Google, sometimes. Recently, in fact. It told me I was having a heart attack until I modified some words, and then it suggested I had a compressed nerve in my neck.

I don’t have panic attacks anymore, though they are going to get a lot worse before they get better. Buckle up. The little pill for helping control that is in my bedroom. I’m on a maintenance dose, which I weaned myself down to. I’m kind of proud of that. You were super concerned about us being happy, which, reading back, is very telling of how unhappy you were. Sorry to say, but I have zero communication with any of those people. Once you graduate high school, you all go your separate ways. Or maybe it was me switching to homeschooling in the middle of high school once the anxiety became overwhelming. Don’t worry, though. You make more friends. Adult friends who have been friends for more than five years.

From the future,

Paige (aka You)

***

Dear Future Me,

I hate my gym teacher. She doesn’t get it. We can’t run. We have never been able to run because of the bone disease. The doctor wrote a note, but she wouldn’t accept it. The doctor called the school to speak to the principal, and while granny was signing me out to take me to a doctor’s appointment, the principal came out to speak to us. She asked if I couldn’t wait until the next semester when I would be healed.

Yep, healed. If I was going to be healed, I think it would have already happened. Granny told her we would never be healed, and now we don’t have to run in gym with our foot hurting. We do have to write essays, though, like we’re being punished for having a medical condition. Right now, I’m having inserts made for my shoe to give extra padding. It’s not really helping. I hope you’re having a better time in the future with these.

See you in the future,

Paige (aka You)

***

Dear Younger Me,

I still hate our gym teacher. Maybe dislike. I don’t like to say I ‘hate’ anyone. That whole situation was ridiculous. I remember the inserts and how, at first, it felt better, and then it didn’t. I’m sorry you were in pain.

I’m sorry the pain doesn’t get better. It gets worse. Walking becomes a lot more painful, but I didn’t tell anyone. Not until one day on campus, at the first college I went to, my foot would not stop hurting no matter how much I rested in the library. I went to the doctor on campus and gave her the whole rundown of my medical history, and she prescribed me Ibuprofen. She also told me to follow up with my doctor. I didn’t have a regular doctor then or for many years after.

You were right, though. The foot was never going to heal. If that principal or gym teacher could see me now, I wonder if they’d feel shame. Probably not. Long story short: I lost the foot. I didn’t want to lose the foot. It gave me so much pain, but I still wanted to keep it. It was disfigured, but it was mine. How do you walk without your foot? You can’t, not without a prosthetic. We get one of those, too, just several years after losing the foot.

From the future,

Paige (aka You)

***

Dear Future Me,

I’m tired. Mama says it’s the medicine. The doctor changed it since the old one wasn’t working. My anxiety has gotten worse. I got a strep infection in my ankle. Who gets strep in their ankle? Me, apparently. Or us. Hopefully, we never get it again. It wasn’t a fun experience. We were in the hospital, and they were forcing us to eat. 

“You need to eat to get better,” a nurse said.

“I don’t feel hungry,” I said.

“You need to try,” the same nurse said.

But eating made me feel sick. I think it had to do with being sick. I’m home now, but I haven’t gone back to school yet. To be honest, I don’t want to go back. My anxiety has gotten so bad, and I can just go to school online. I could even graduate early.

I don’t know. Daddy and mama want me to go back, but I’ve cried over this. I’m such a crybaby. I’m kind of afraid of getting another infection and losing my leg. That’s what the nurse in the doctor’s office told me. She said if it had gone to my bone, I’d have lost my leg. That’s frightening. Way to give a pep talk. Wonderful bedside manner. I think she said it because she was mad I waited so long to come in, but she still shouldn’t have said it.

I wish I didn’t have to take medication. I wish I was stronger. Maybe in the future, I can be.

See you in the future,

Paige (aka You)

***

Dear Younger Me,

You don’t know it yet, but you are strong. You are stronger than you think you can be. At least, that’s what everyone else says since we lost the foot and the leg below the knee. Don’t be afraid to scream and cry about how unfair it is. People will tell you life is unfair or that this happened to you for some grand cosmic reason, but you only have to nod and wheel away (eventually walk away once I relearn how to walk). Or, if you’re braver than me—daddy would say you’re a smart aleck—you’ll tell them you don’t need their false sympathy. Okay, it’s not false. I’m sure some of them are genuine. Maybe the majority.

The point is, you can get angry too. That’s okay to do. You don’t have to hold it in and put on a forced smile like you do far too often. Be honest. If it hurts, say it hurts. If you’re sad, say it. If you’re angry, shout it. Otherwise, those emotions you feel are going to get caught up in your chest. They’ll burn and ache, and you will drown in the whirlwind of thoughts leading you nowhere but a dark pit you will continually climb out of. I say ‘continually’ because you’ll fall back into that pit. Again and again.

It’s not going to be easy. When has it ever been easy for us? But if you know ahead of time, you can prepare yourself better than I did. I hope you do. I was blindsided, honestly. But hey, I’m alive. We’re alive. You make it through. Why did I say if you know ahead of time? There’s no way this letter can reach you. I’ll stop here. There’s nothing else to reply to. I can’t believe I thought I would keep up with that journal.

From the future,

Paige (aka You)