Incompetence

11 February 2018

Dear Future Me,

Often times, the feeling of incompetence

Overwhelms me.

“Follow your heart, and you’ll find the way!!”, they say.

But what if your heart is torn between two?

What if the path you choose isn’t the one for you?

Then where do you go?

Where do you go, when the

Awkward silence in the room

Surrounds you no matter where you go?

And no matter how hard you try,

The only voices in your head

Are the ones you are trying to get rid of

Singing tunes of “you’ll never make it in the real world”

Because you can’t go back in time,

you can only move forward.

And so, right now, the feeling of incompetence

Overwhelms me.

I do not know who I want to be in life,

But you probably do.

So tell me, did you become somebody

Our mother and father can look at

And say “Yes that’s my daughter!”

With such pride and emotion

That overpowers the pain I am feeling

Of knowing I will never be who they wish I could be?

You know I’ve made mistakes, but I’m growing everyday

And every hour that goes by I’m working twice as hard

Than the kid sitting next to me in class

With the 4.0 gpa who’s out drinking and partying.

And my parents say do great things for yourself

But I wouldn’t be myself if it weren’t for the love they created

That resulted in a little baby whose dreams are said

To be one in a million

But I

I want to reach for the stars.

And I’ll do whatever it takes to reach them,

As long as it makes my parents proud.

So tell me, does the feeling of incompetence go away?

Yours truly,

Seventeen-Year-Old Me.