This Is For Caleb Tucker.

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I wrote a letter to myself around this time last year. From the way I wrote it, I guess my past self thought I wouldn't find this until my sophomore year of college. But my past self asked my future self what she had accomplished, so far.

And the weird thing is...I had accomplished a lot of those things, in just a year.

I've applied to colleges. And I have a pretty good idea where I'm headed.
Those that I thought would still be in my life...are still in my life. Hell and high water came, but those people managed to stay.
I met new people that have come to play such vital roles in my life...roles that I never thought existed.
I have made myself a new kind of musician. I have played at venues that I never thought I'd ever perform at before college.

It's pretty cool, when I think about it.

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The other day, Mr Potter was talking about how we write and how we percieve things. He said that when we look back at something we wrote in the fifth grade, we notice that we wrote in short, simple sentences back then.

He said that was because a part of our brain was not yet developed.
A part of the brain (frontal cortex, I think...I don't remember) does not fully develop until about the age we are sophomores in high school.
That part of the brain...the part that concocts deep, meaningful thoughts and allows us to see the world in a way that we've never seen it before and helps us to express it...does not develop until we are roughly sixteen years old.

When he said that...God, it was like everything clicked.
When I was sixteen, I remember feeling like I was changing, in the sense of expression. I felt like my very innermost thoughts could somehow be penned to my notebook paper.
The first time I ever did that...writing without really editing my thoughts...I lost someone that I believed to be my best friend. After what happened when I wrote it, and the wordless fight it ensued, I remember how I felt like I had been blinded before by something I could not pinpoint.

There was something new within me, and I had no idea what it was.

I was viewing the world in a different way.
I was meeting people I never thought I'd ever become close to.
I was doing things that would make my younger self be appalled.
I was putting myself beyond myself in ways that I never imagined.
I began to not really care if I wasn't as cool or as well-liked as other people I knew...as long as I liked myself and I was doing what I innately felt was good for me, then the rest would just come as it may.

...and it does.

I have a lot of positivity in my life.
The only negativity most of the time is the way I punch myself in the balls every time I slip up...even when it's a common mistake that anyone could make.
I put up VERY high standards for myself. A lot of times, I have let myself down and I've taken the blame for other peoples' actions.

I'm working on NOT doing that anymore.

My brain has opened up in a HUGE way. My writing has gotten to a level that inspires people (a result that I feel is often misplaced).

I have surrounded myself with amazing people. They are not perfect, nor are they ne'er-do-wells. Some have hurt me, but one thing's for sure: they all give something, and they all take something from being in my life. I make sure I let them know how much they mean to me, and to not let life get them down.

I love in a way that is beyond me. Therefore, it's not understood and has the potential to be feared. But it's the only way I can love. I can only hope that my future boyfriend or future husband can tolerate that...or want it in the first place.

I want to always write like this. I want to always live life differently with each decade, with each year, with each day...while still retaining that bit of me that is always definable and recognized by those that know me best and love me for it.

I never want to fully grow up. I hope to have that hint of Peter Pan in me. I want to keep life an adventure. I want to keep making music. I want to keep making people happy in a childlike sort of way.

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Every time I'm on the field for band, I see a butterfly. I remember hearing that butterflies meant good luck.

If that's the case, then our band has a lot of goodness in it this season.
Whenever I see a butterfly, I think to myself: "I can do this."

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Well, Caleb Tucker, I hope this suffices.
I love you so much.