I was reading a recent post on a bog I really like, and it got me thinking about my younger, more impressive high school self. So I decided to write a letter to my younger self.     Dear Kate-of-senior-year-in-high-school     I'm writing this letter from the future. Hey, stop laughing! A lot has happened. Some of it was sad, but most of it has been lovely. What I really want to talk about is where you're going. You've gotten a lot of advice from adults this past year. And I'd like to help you sort it all out.     Enjoy these last few months before graduation, because high school is the best time of your life.     Enjoy them, for sure. But that thing about high school being the best part? When I look back, I can't find a better memory than my high school days.     Stop being so idealistic; you can't change the world.     Okay...it's true that you're not going to change it all at once, so sweep away what you're imagining. But you can do your part, and you will do it best in a thousand little ways through the years. They add up, so keep believing, even when it doesn't work out right away.     Words are powerful.     This was from your English teacher Mr. Smythe, who said a lot of true things, as it turns out. All that stuff about the power of language and the potential for literature to bring people together, helping us understand ourselves and the world around us, so we can make a difference? All true.     You should keep writing. You're good at it. You are. You won't always think so. As a matter of fact, there will be a lot of days when you decide you are perhaps the world's worst writer and deserve to have your laptop thrown down from a mountain. But that's part of being a writer, and you'll get over it. You'll go a long time only writing term papers and other things for school, and then only news stories for a few years. But one day, you'll come back home to poetry and fiction. You will keep writing, because you're good at it But more than that, because it makes you whole! Yes...keep writing. It will be a wonderful experience.                                                    Yours,                                                     Kate What does Kate think of her high school years now?
She thinks her high school years were full of regrets. She doesn't remember what happened then at all. She thinks they were great. She regards her time in high school as the most painful part of her life.