It was so easy, and the words so sweet. You can't remember, you try to feel the beat ...

Today, I got a letter from myself. I wrote it in a computer class that I took in the tenth grade.  It was dated December 19, 2005.  I was sixteen, I still lived with both of my parents and what was then all of my brothers, I had just fallen in love for the first time, and I was as open-hearted and warm as anyone is ever likely to be.  My friends were my whole world, my mom was my hero (some things never change), and I was so willing and so able to put my whole soul out in the open.  Some of this letter is awkward, some is embarassing, some doesn't make sense to anyone but me, and some of it is about people and things that live in my past like a beautiful scene in an old movie.  Reading this letter was like having lunch with myself at sixteen.  Though it is a little strange, I thought it was important, and I'm going to reprint it here, with as few corrections as modesty will allow :). I'd like to introduce you to Rachel Cathleen Esteban, aged 16.


Dearest Rachel,

Here I am. A shadow of your former self (lol).  It must be really weird for you to read this now, probably just about done with college, or raising a family, or working, or some other manifestation of my interests.  I hope you went to college, but I can't say I know what you did, because even right now, in my junior year, I have not decided what to do with my life.

Also, you might have done things really differently than I planned you to.  Sometimes we are the victims of circumstances beyond our control.  Don't let that get to you if you didn't follow my dreams exactly.  Sometimes things change, and we get new dreams, but please tell me that you kept my dreams alive as far as wanting a real life.  Do you know what i mean? You did, at some point or another.  I mean that I still want to know what life is about: love.  Loving everything.  Right now, in this fantastic, confusing stage of my life, I love:

• The trees
• The mountains (I can't abide a flat landscape.  Makes me feel all insecure.)
• The sky
• The way the lake looks in fall when the leaves are all red and orange, like the mountain is on fire, and teh wind bites just a little bit, while I sit on the porch and try to read without being distracted by the beautiful show that nature puts on, like she is a puppy trying to get my attention
• This community
• My friends
• The Kane Krue (ha-ha! The Cane Crew.  Rob, Joe, Sarah, Peri, Christian, Matt and Christine.  All the pretty movies.  We've seen so many!  The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and Rent, Serenity, and of course The Fog, ha-ha.  Oh, Serenity comes out on DVD tomorrow.  SO Excited. Also, Rent was a life changing movie)
• BROADWAY::NOT A HOBBY, A WAY OF LIFE!!!!! (Wicked, Rent, The Secret Garden, LITTLE SHOP, etc.)
• Firefly/Serenity
• The Cars (and, of course, parking in cars...)
• The old Factoryville crew, even though Darren and Dad had a falling out. 
• Rob, of course <3. 

So more to the point again (got all distracted).  I hope you still like to watch the Rankin-Bass Christmas movies, and to ice skate outdoors, and to make Rob blush, and if you aren't dating Rob anymore, that's okay I guess, but dissapointing.  As many have said, he's a keeper, and I love him a great deal.  He treats me with a whole lot of respect, and it shows that he really cares.  He is as close to perfect as I would ever want anyone to be.  If you broke up with him, or he broke up with you, and this depresses you, don't let it.  No teenager knows who they are going to spend the rest of their life with, so I dont know what is going to go on as far as your life live.  Our lives change with every breath we take, we both know that (Where the Heart Is).  There is something to say for taking life as it comes and working with what we get.

Anyway, there is so much I want to say to you (me) but I don't think I should just babble on.  I do that enough at this point already.  However, I think it is important to tell you what I am like right now so you can remember and, if necessary, try to get me back if you've lost me.

I love life, as you know.  I am extremely extroverted, and I love an audience.  I am bold, and brassy, and i frequently stumble on my ADHD and say or do outrageous things.  Anymore, though, the whole attention problem thing only happens in (mercifully) short bursts.

I never do my schoolwork, and I am classified as a "suck up", if that means anything to you.  I don't think it does.  I actually like the teachers, and care what they think about me.  Just today, in the hallway, Mr. Bachman (the police guy) and Mr. Jurbala (the superintendent) were talking about how I am going to be a star. Mr. Bachman jokingly made me promise to send him an autograph when I get famous, and to give him free tickets to my Broadway shows.  I really will, and this is me reminding you.

I live and die for musicals.  That is how I will probably always be.  Did I ever get that tattoo on my ankle of the masks of cocmedy and gragedy? Did I go to Emerson, or NYU, or did I stay here for Rob, which, I hate to admit, I was seriously considering???

I hope that things went well for me, but that isn't as important to me as you would think.  I just hope you're happy.  A real life, that I can stand on my own two feet, and love of all things bright and beautiful.  that is all I can wish you.

Love,

Rachel Esteban, age 16