Hey.

Can you hear me?

I know. I'm sorry.

I thought your troubles were over too. It's just been block after block, hasn't it?

It's a lot of white noise surrounding you. You thought you had gotten through it all, but more was yet to come. But that year prepared you, right?

All that pain, all that hurt and searching for answers that didn't seem to exist. All the crying, the numbness, the denial. All the hatred for the world and what it had the nerve to put you through. It all served a purpose, didn't it?

Compared to that, this feels like nothi--

No. This feels like everything.

You've spent months applying for different schools, fighting with your family and yourself over what you think is best and wondering how the fuck you're even gonna pay for it. You've actually cried because it started happening again -- the anxiety, the insensitivity, the lack of pleasure in doing your favorite things, always being so goddamn tired

This means a lot to you, and it still weighs you down like last year did. This still means everything.

It won't feel like nothing. It'll feel big, even bigger than yourself because that's what it is. But it's not your first time with hardship, and that's what makes this different -- you've been between the jaws of failure and despair and you've gotten out alive.

It's supposed to feel scary and give you anxiety. It's not going to stop being scary just because you've gone through it before. An eighty pound weight is not as heavy after you learn to carry it, but it's definitely not a feather on your back. It's still eighty pounds, is it not?

But what has changed is you. You no longer give into those spells of not wanting to leave your bed. You now realize that you have a choice -- and I see you making your decisions more often than not. You now take your life into your own two hands and you go down swinging. It is you that has gotten stronger.

I can't tell you not to worry because chances are you'll worry anyway. Your father said you were a worrier -- those who worry often have sharp minds. He told you to use that sharp mind to rationalize things instead of worrying. It's only natural to worry about an unknown, and it's okay. I know you've been putting in your hours, just as everyone knows you do.

You have not made it this far just to break down in the end.

And that's just it -- it never ends. There is never really a true end because when one thing ends, another begins. Ashes give birth to blossoms that wither, but the blossom only withers when the fruit is ripe. The fruit falls, the tree goes bare, and it does what it can to survive the winter, but out of the remnants of life, another tree sprouts and flowers to life again. The cycle continues with countless endings and beginnings, and no matter how it may feel, time flows in an exact current.

Just let it flow. Feel what you have to feel, do what you have to do. There is no rush. You are almost above the mountain.

the one who lives now