You have grown up scared of what is to come. Scared of what will happen and scared of the unknown. Scared in elementary school of not getting accepted to the high school all of your friends are going to. Scared as a senior in high school of the inevitable thought of choosing the next school you will attend because the next four years will be the root of your life’s career and will change every aspect of your life as you know it. Scared that the friends you have made in high school have the chance of drifting away and the unavoidable future will hold no place for them. In all reality, the fear of growing up is in the back of everyone’s core thoughts, but it is simply a part of life, and as much as you have tried to avoid it at all undying costs, you have done it, and you have grown up.

I hope your life is all that you ever dreamed. I hope you have accomplished all that you have ever wanted. I hope that you have no regrets and that every second you have spent on this earth has not been wasted. I dream that you never find yourself wishing you had done something differently because I hope that you can understand that in that moment it is all you ever wanted and in no world would you have ever thought that anything needed to be different.

And as cliché as it is, I hope that you have lived your life like nobody is watching, because that is all that really matters in the end. It’s not your overwhelming desire to know what a person’s thoughts are on your every waking movement; it is how you think of who you are. At the end of your life it’s the people you love, the people you’ve known and the people you’ve left behind that have impacted your life. I hope that you have absorbed the life lessons and wisdom of those around you and have let them impact who you are for the better. I hope that you spend your life surrounded by people who give you joy and happiness. But in all reality, I hope you are happy with yourself and who you are and the life you’ve lived.

I hope that you have traveled the world. I hope you have seen every inch that this world has had to offer and that you so desired to bear witness to it with your own two eyes. I hope that your life has been a life filled with overwhelming and overflowing amounts of adventure.

And as much as I would hope that you have made a life for yourself, that your college degree didn’t go to waste, I hope you have found something that you truly love; something that completes your life. I hope that you have found someone who completes your life. I hope that you have found a love big enough to complete a thousand lifetimes and I hope that the love that you’ve shared compels your body, mind and soul.

I hope you don’t forget. Don’t forget to be kind, because unlike most things, kindness does not come with a cost. Don’t forget the people you’ve known, the people you've met and the memories you’ve shared. Don’t forget the places you've gone and the things you have seen.

Don’t forget your childhood. Don’t forget your neighborhood friends. Don’t forget running to the nearby park to play an intense game of hide and seek. Remember spending hours outside on summer days until the sun stopped supplying your fun with light.

Remember not to forget high school and all the times you’ve had with the people you cherished most. Remember the football games, spirit week and prom. Remember the times you skipped out on class to roam the empty halls with your best friend. Don’t forget your teachers who taught you more about life and love than about how you graph the slope of some line. The teachers who changed your outlook on life as you knew it and who inspired you to look outside the inner aspects of “normal.”

Remember when you learned to drive. Remember the look on your parent’s face the first time you slammed on the brakes because you had no idea what you were doing. Remember the patience (or lack of patience) because in those quick lessons they have taught you more than you could ever imagine. Remember every lesson your parents have given, for it is these lessons that sculpt who you are and stay with you as life quickly moves on.

But most of all remember the laughter. Remember the greatest and the smallest of laughs. Remember the people who made you laugh the most and cherish them. I hope you keep those people with you by your side because it’s those people who will inspire the greatest moments of your life.

And most of all I hope that the fear of growing up hasn’t stopped you from living in the moment, because you should be doing exactly that. Live for the present because that is the only thing you can change. Make the present so good that you’ll never find yourself in a state of regret, and so much better than any future you had ever dreamed of.