Dear 16-year-old Beth

It’s a glorious time to be alive. Enjoy every second of it.

I know you are worried – you were just diagnosed with a neurological condition last year. You are thinking about how you are supposed to live a life of restrictions when you badly want to meet the world. Let me tell you that everything is okay right here, several years into the future. We survived two neurological ordeals and you could say that we are a miracle. Sounds cool, right? Actually, I just realized that we’re cooler than we always let on, while I am writing this. Do not worry too much over there because you are doing just fine. Just please stop whining and sulking about not being able to take the UPCAT because years later, it will be irrelevant to the path we are going to take. UP will always be the dream that we woke up from, and you can count me on this.

Here in the future, we always get good-paying jobs because we know our worth, and we know what we can do. Although, I’d ask you to fall in love with knowledge, and keep yearning for something new to learn. I know you think this is a bit of ridiculous advice because we already know so many things, but let me tell you that there are more things that we have no idea about. Never be tired of being determined, because that’s one of the qualities of our youth that allowed me, your future self, to be where I am right now. Happy and content with what we have, while still working for what we want.

Nick Carter is happily married now, with three super cute kids, but not with us. We never went to any of his concerts because by the time we finally can afford to buy VIP tickets, we were in the hospital. Nope, don’t be scared because again, we survived. We’re still a fangirl, but this time we’re torn between two Korean idols – Yonghwa and Junmyeon. Unlike our fangirling in your time, in my time we can talk directly to the stars thru social media. It’s better than Yahoo Messenger – it’s like Metro Manila Barkada but loads and loads better (that we ended up making it our job, no kidding). We buy fangirling stuff straight from South Korea and we take pride in possessing every physical album (we now buy CDs, yay!), every photocard (this is what we call your wallet pix now), every merchandise (the magazines, photobooks, and other stuff), and the lightstick (hmmm, from its name it’s a stick that lights up and you wave it in the air during concerts). We love CNBLUE and EXO, and if you hear them in 2012, please. Start trying to get to know them and start being a fan!

Just in case you’re wondering, we are still single. We’ve been into relationships (nope, not with anyone we had a thing in your era), which only made us realize why we’re better off alone. But we are so oozing with self-love and happiness that sometimes, we forget that maybe, dating is something that we can give a shot at. Do not rush though – there’s a really cute and smart guy here in the future that we’re crushing on, and he’s the standard and he set the bar too high. We wrote a story about him, and oh yeah, we are an author now! Those stories that we wrote at the back of our math notebooks and yellow papers are now actual books (well, just one of them – the one that involves the spirit of the glass? I forgot the original title but it’s now called Destiny Cheated Me) that can be bought from the National Book Store. We have a total of six books on the market – four of them are in the National Book Store and two are self-published.

Please do not allow this letter to affect your future decisions and next course of action. I want you to treat this as a comforting message in times when you feel like you can’t take it anymore. This is an assurance that we are in a good place in the future. The life challenges you encounter are God’s way of preparing us for the next big thing. I know it’s tough being a freshman in college, but you’ll meet wonderful people along the way. We’re still friends with some of them here in my time.

Take care of yourself always, and drink lots of water. That’s also something we’re not good at, until now.

사랑하자.

Your future self from 2022.

p.s. we just celebrated our birthday and this is our cake.

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