High School Revisited: A Letter From the Future

Dear 18-year old Adrienne,

First of all, congratulations are in order. You are still alive.You didn't succumb to leprosy or horrid death. The apocalypse has not yet come, though technically 4 months of the year 2012 remain so now is not the time to count your eggs. Possible Mayan Doomsday approacheth.

Additionally, you are not incarcerated.

For these reasons and more I applaud your transition in becoming A Successful Adult.

18-year-old Adrienne, I know you're on the path towards becoming a journalist. Might want to steer clear of that one. It's a long and winding road.

Turns out you still don't need to use math very much, so good job on taking the easy way out and stopping after Algebra 1. Don't be ashamed when you go to dinner parties and people make offhand references to theorems and other junk. You don't need to know that! And yes, you will go to parties where people will be talking about sine and cosine and other weird computerspeak.

On that note, you may have put 2 and 2 together (because that's math you CAN do) and figured out that you'll have friends who are much smarter than you. Learn to deal with this. You still do a mean mingle.

You will not be the valedictorian in high school. Or in college.

You are still blogging after 10 years. I hate to be the one to tell you, but you are no longer on Xanga. You are also no longer on MySpace. Of course, at 18 you don't know what MySpace is, but you're none the worse for this.

I know right now you think being grounded is the worst possible punishment in the modern world, but listen, get over it. Turns out you're going to be a bigtime homebody anyway. Embrace your introvert now.

Think really hard about this question - do you really want to spend $55 to see the Beastie Boys in concert? Wouldn't you rather save that money so in 4 years you could see Elton John, or even Paul McCartney?

Also, the time will come when you have the chance to attend a Elliott Smith show at the University of Utah.  You'll probably talk yourself out of it and do homework that's due the next day. Maybe rethink this - I hope I'm not giving anything away, but it could be his last show.

On that note, why not slow down buying compact discs. You never know.

Some financial advice now. You and a friend create a website your freshman year of college called ChipmanChicks.com (named after your dorm). You create profiles of girls in your hall, complete with posed pictures of each girl, detailing their interests, dating status, etc. You might seriously want to consider expanding this venture. Like, now.

You may not believe this, but you like Utah. A lot. You even bought a home there.

You may not believe this, but you married a Mormon boy.

You may not believe this, but turns out Dawson's Creek is sort of awful. Really, don't kid yourself.

Of the 101 Things to Do By Age 30 list, you have completed the following:

3. Be a creative director.
11. Become a mother.
19. Learn how to cook Thai.
42. Become well versed in cheese.
44. Go on a cheese tour.
48. Learn how to confront people.
74. Get a video game system that I can play Mario Kart on.

89. Hand make at least half of my Christmas presents.

Yet, you still have some nipping at your heels:

8. Go to Tokyo.

40. Take a puppetry class.

49. Do my genealogy.

66. Ride in a hot air balloon.

83. Meet Werner Herzog and give him a high-five.

90. Wear a jumpsuit well.

100. Play Balderdash with Paula Poundstone.

But you are well on your way to achieving perhaps the most important:

101. Be someone my 5 year-old self and 90-year old self would be proud of


Rock on, 18 year-old Adrienne. You do okay, kid.

Love,

Your Future Self

Also, turtlenecks. Probably not the best look for you.