Dear Future,

I haven't thought about you in a while. I know I need to. The time between now and meeting you grows with every moment that passes my eyes, awake and asleep. And yet, you, a hypothetical certainty, are always changing. I've been so busy preparing for you, all the classes, and resume builders, and busywork, I seem to have completely forgotten about everything you entail. You are what I will encounter in a short year and a half. I know where it is that I want to be when I meet you, but I don't know how to get there. You are an ideal that is massively appealing, but incredibly difficult to attain.

But soon, once I graduate, I get to meet you. I will have the chance to see where the life I have lived for the past four years is going to take me. I get to embark upon a new journey and I will have the opportunity to do what it is that I love, no matter what anybody else says. I know it will be difficult. Particularly with what I want to do in life. People have told me that I am blind and short-sighted, and that I have absolutely no idea what I will encounter when I enter that world. And it's true. I do not know exactly what I will encounter, but proper preparation will ensure that I have a good base to stand on. But because the world I want to enter is unforgiving, and because it will require even greater tests of my character, morals, and values than those I have faced during college, these facts do not mean that I will not have the strength to encounter them. I will encounter them. They will not deter me from my goal, my dream, my hope... I will not allow fear of the unknown, or fear of backlash, or fear of any one thing to stop me from what I aim to do.

Your obstacles will not stop me. I will fight for what I believe in, and for those things that make me who I am. Your challenges fuel my desire to accomplish my goals, and any who bring up those negative things to try to lead me astray from my path will find that their efforts are wasted. I will not be shaken.

Future. The Future. What a daunting concept that is yet both beautiful and terrible to behold. You hold so much good and optimism and possibility, but you also conceal much evil. Yet, without considering you and thinking of you, I cannot be fully prepared for when I meet you. Our goal is to be prepared for that day when we meet you, but most of the time, we aren't. We are utterly unprepared. You will not find me that way. I want to know the unknowns that you hide. There is so much that you hold and know that I have yet to discover.

Part of me is afraid, but I know that having fear is not a bad thing. Letting it consume you and your decisions is.

Why am I writing to you? Why now? I think that is because I have come to a few realizations over the past few days, and, more glaringly than ever before, I have realized everything that I still have not determined and prepared for you. I have focused on many things this semester, some of which should have not had such a great presence in my mind. Most of them are questions: Will I ever find love?; What am I going to do after I graduate?; Why am I doing so many extracurricular activities?. I do not have answers to all of them, but the best thing I can do to move forward from this semester is to move my focus to things that are most important for me, things that are not dependent upon someone else.

So, yes. I am writing this letter now to tell you that, as time goes by, I am steadily making myself prepared to meet you. I am eager, afraid, hopeful, optimistic, realistic, and uncertain. I am a plethora of emotions. I cannot wait for the day I find you. You are something worth fighting for and this choice, this opportunity, will launch me on an adventure I will live for the rest of my life. I will fight for you and work like hell to make certain that our meeting is a beautiful, happy, and successful one.

Dear Future, you are what it is that I am waiting for.

Warm Regards,

Me