What I Wish I Could Tell My Younger Self

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By Zaria George ‘22

The Railway by Edouard Manet (1873). Image courtesy of the National Gallery of Art.

As I’m writing this, you are two days short of turning 22. 

You will develop a love for art that you never knew had been there. 

You will lose a lot of people who you loved. Don’t let that harden you. Please still open your heart up to the world. Please still share your thoughts, worries, and dreams. There is a lot more good than there is bad. People are not binary. 

Continue to be a nice person, and don’t close yourself off to everyone. Your personality will eventually consist of resignation. You won’t feel like you can truly be yourself around anyone. 

You should continue cheerleading. You’ll miss it every now and then. 

You are very quiet. I wish that you would speak more and understand what I know now—how low-stakes a lot of life is. Talk to people. Befriend people. Talk to the boys you’ll get crushes on. Those people you’re intimidated of right now will be in the back of your mind years later. No longer to seek their approval, but just to wonder where life has brought them. 

You will lose Spartacus when you are 5. You will lose Jericho when you are 21. 

At 12, you will experience depression for the first time. It’ll come quickly one night as you’re lying with Jedi. You’ll realize everything is temporary, and you won’t stop crying. You’ll cry yourself to sleep. The next few days—weeks—months—you’ll rotate through cycles of vicious thoughts. 

It will be on-and-off for many years. You’ll get help for the first time your sophomore year of high school. I’m sorry that it took so long. Mom and Dad didn’t understand, but they really did care. They just couldn’t comprehend that there is no Brown or Black cure for it. That the thoughts just couldn’t simply go away, with the way that they’ve suppressed and internalized so much hardship for so long.

You’ll grow a newfound appreciation for them when you’re in college. It will still feel difficult to talk to them about your thoughts, worries, and dreams, though.

High school and college are nothing like the movies. Take that as you may. You will have more fun in college, though. You won’t get into your dream school. But you’ll go somewhere else, far enough from home, where you’ll learn you love photography, writing, and graphic design. You’ll be an Art History and English major.

You really don’t know a lot about the world or life even though you may think you do. And you never will. 

I know that it is a lot—because of your BPD, because of your OCD—to take everything in. It’s okay to rather feel less than too much; it’s okay to seek help. Just please don’t let it disconnect you from the world. Learn to stop self-sabotaging yourself. People aren’t mind readers and can’t magically understand your change in mood. You yourself don’t understand it.

You’re not a mind reader, either, though. Trust that things just happen for a reason, and you’ll be okay.

You’ll be a life-long, voluntary insomniac. You’ll never be able to give up the night. 

When you do very briefly want to, though, then you’ll have trouble sleeping. Sorry. 

Ask mom to speak to you in Spanish, because you’ll be stuck wanting to learn it later in life. 

You will lose your abuelo when you’re 18. Your abuela will become your biggest inspiration. I wish you could talk to her in the same language. 

Stop looking for validation. You have yet to fall in love (you might not ever, to be honest). Understand sometimes knowledge can’t transfer past the cerebral. You so easily empathize for some but can’t for others. Figure that out now. You push away the people you love.

You will finally have an answer for what your favorite song is.

Zaria George’s ‘22 (zgeorge) favorite weather is a storm. From the May 2022 issue.