As I lie in bed, wide awake at 3:30 a.m., my mind decides to wander. It’s running all over the place, but somehow, it always leads me back to you. It’s almost frightening thinking about you, honestly.

I don’t know much about you, but you know everything about me. Funny how that is, huh?

You’re at the top of the mountain while I’m still climbing my way up.

Life is hard once you get older, so I hear. The real world and responsibilities seem far away but they’re approaching. I have so many questions for you, which is why I’m up at night, wracking my brain for what lies ahead.

How does our life turn out to be? Did you make that big move to the city of your dreams? Is the stress now all going to be worth it? When will it get easier? Do we still have the same friends or was there a fallout? Did that one law class that I failed ruin your life or are you just fine? When will I look back on my high school years and realize that those awful people actually helped me? Do we face a lot of struggles and pain, or is it just an easy walk in the park from this point?

But most importantly, when does my life become yours?

I know I’m asking too many questions, sorry. But right now, life’s a little scary. I have no idea what to expect or what to do.

***

I wonder if you’ll still hold onto your awkward sense of humor and random laughter. Your humor has saved you from when you had two exams and two papers due all in one week, while having a fever and trying to hold onto your sanity. I really don’t know how we did it, but we did.

I hope the little things like free chocolate or coffee and drinking sweet tea from a mason jar still make you so excited that you can’t even handle it.

When I picture you, it’s normally you sipping coffee as you’re watching the sunset or rain fall with your laptop and dog in toe,  reading or writing.

I picture you chasing our dreams and taking the world by storm as a writer and never accepting the word “no” for an answer. I picture you getting up every morning with a smile on your face because work doesn’t feel like work since you enjoy it so much, regardless of the bills piling up on your table. Don’t worry too much about them, you’ll get through it!

I just hope to God that you’re not a workaholic. If you are, please, please, make time for the people you love; they won’t always be here.

But most importantly, I picture you happy.

Wherever you are in life, whether you have three kids and a husband or whether you’re traveling through this world by yourself, I hope your life is what you want it to be. If all your friends are getting married and having kids and you’re not, what’s meant to be, will be.

If there’s any doubt in your heart that there’s an ounce of you that isn’t happy, listen to my words carefully: stop everything you’re doing that doesn’t make you happy and change it.

I don’t care if you’re somehow making one million a year, if you aren’t happy, move on and do what it is you really want. Remember that 19-year-old in you, when you decided to change your major to something you loved because you didn’t care about the money? Don’t lose sight of that girl.

You know the struggles we’ve been through and how bad things can get when you aren’t truly happy. Please, don’t go back there. Don’t be that person anymore.

You have come so far and accomplished more than you ever thought was possible. Never in a million years would I have ever thought that fifteen-year-old bullied me, would be the managing editor of my college newspaper.

Never. But it happened. Anything is possible, but you need to be happy doing it!

***

You’re probably questioning me at the moment, laughing, while wondering why I stay up at strange times of the night to think about you.

Well, that’s easy. I don’t have magic ink to write out my future before my very eyes. So, instead, I think about what lies ahead of me and who you are.

I know everything that I do right now in the moment writes my future and who I will be as a person, but that doesn’t prevent me from thinking about the future.

One day I want to move mountains and take the world by storm, but the only way to do that is to never lose sight of who I am and the people, places and events that got me there. But you already know that.

If being spontaneous and not afraid to take risks gets me to where you are, I will take everyday as a lesson learned with no regrets and love every decision that I’ve made thus far.

No matter what it is that lies ahead, I’ll always find a reason to smile everyday, remain goal oriented and continue to have fun. But most importantly, be happy. And think of you.