Dear­est Yours Truly,

Hello. It's you. I just wanted to take the time to con­grat­u­late you for mak­ing it to high school. The ninth grade is the begin­ning of a brand new adven­ture that you will (believe me, I know) look back and smile at.

I know you are excited. Scared, but over­all excited to start the next four years of your life. But if I may, I have some first-hand expe­ri­ence that I would like to pass down, free of charge.

First and fore­most, stay active and start chang­ing your eat­ing habits now. Seri­ously. You will thank me in nine years.

Next, I know that you are in a weird place right now, despite the fact that you may be bury­ing it down beneath that sense of humor. You are fig­ur­ing out who you are. It's some­thing that every­one has to go through. Let's just get it out in the open, we both know you are gay. That wasn’t so bad, right? I know it seems hard, but let me tell you, the sooner you accept it, the sooner you will feel… right. The next four years will be the time of your life, but at the same time, it will be a strug­gle with this mon­key on your back that you can’t shake. Oth­ers will tease you, like they have for a while now, so don’t really expect that to change. But it won’t be too bad. All I can say is that when you look back at the peo­ple that treated you badly in high school, you will laugh. And you will hon­estly won­der why it both­ered you so much in the first place. Because Jimmy, you are so FIERCE that noth­ing can stop you (that will mean so much more to you in about 7 years). Peo­ple will ask if you are gay, and you will deny it. Wor­ry­ing that it may some­how get back to the peo­ple who really mean a lot to you. I can tell you now, the ones who mean the most are the ones that will still love you. And come on Jimmy, you have a Louis Vuit­ton mes­sen­ger bag, so it's not too big of a secret. I am not say­ing that you have to come out right away; I am say­ing that you are blow­ing it up in your mind. It's all good. You are gonna do fine. I am not wor­ried, because by your senior year you will really start to come into your own. And Jimmy, your mom will not care. She loves you too much.

Now let's talk about COLLEGE! You will have a very weird tran­si­tion from high school to where I am today. But it will be fun, excit­ing and absolutely worth it. After a blip at San Jose State Uni­ver­sity, you will make it to Orange Coast Col­lege (OCC)! It's going to be great because that is where you will meet your best friend in the entire world. You’ll know who I’m talk­ing about when you meet him. The thing I want to tell you about col­lege is that it is not dif­fi­cult. You just have to try. Study. It's so sim­ple. Just do it. It may seem like a drag. But seri­ously, just study.

Get involved sooner. You will even­tu­ally join the speech team at OCC, and this will change your life. It will not only give you the oppor­tu­nity to travel the world and meet great peo­ple, but it will give you a sense of pride and belong­ing to your school. Being part of a team is some­thing that I must say is an incred­i­ble feel­ing. There is no aspect of this that you will not love. You will do fine. Just prac­tice more than you think you should.

Again, you will thank me later.

I hope this let­ter finds you well.

Sin­cerely,

Jimmy

Author: Jimmy Gomez
High School: Mur­ri­eta Val­ley High School (Mur­ri­eta, Ca)
Col­leges: San Jose State Uni­ver­sity; Orange Coast Col­lege; Cal­i­for­nia State Uni­ver­sity, Long Beach (CSULB)
Now: Jour­nal­ism major (senior), CSULB; Pres­i­dent, CSULB Foren­sics (Speech & Debate) Team; prepar­ing for a career in pub­lic­ity or pub­lic relations.

This let­ter was writ­ten as part of the Bet­ter­Grads spe­cial series: "Write a Let­ter to Your High School Self." Con­trib­u­tors are asked to answer ques­tions or con­cerns they may have had in high school, such as "What's the pur­pose of col­lege?" and "Is it worth it?" If you'd like to sub­mit a let­ter for pub­li­ca­tion, please read our edi­to­r­ial guide­lines and let us know here.