Member-only story
A Letter to My 16-Year-Old Self
I see you, even if no one else does.
Dear 16-year-old Sam,
This year was a great year for you.
You reconnected with the boy who would become your very first boyfriend, you started taking running more seriously and put yourself on the path towards captainship as a senior, and you took more AP classes than you had in the past two years combined, setting yourself up for your coming college career.
Yes, it all looked great on the surface. But I know what was underneath.
That emptiness and aching that only running could quell, that sat in your gut like a lead weight that always weighed you down.
You don’t know it yet, but you have anxiety. Mostly social anxiety, but generalized anxiety as well — that’s why you can never relax.
Sometimes I wonder what naming that feeling has done for me. It has helped me gain a sense of control over my life, knowing the problem, but it hasn’t healed the problem in the slightest. I wish I could say it went away. Instead, it got worse.
That’s why I must apologize.
A part of me is sorry I could not honor the ambition present in you, Sam, until the last few years. I know you had big dreams: become a published author, move to New York, get a dog of your own, run a…
