{"id":5020,"date":"2026-05-03T11:49:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T11:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/05\/03\/a-goodbye-to-my-younger-self\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T11:49:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T11:49:25","slug":"a-goodbye-to-my-younger-self","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/05\/03\/a-goodbye-to-my-younger-self\/","title":{"rendered":"A goodbye to my younger self"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Dear 15-year-old Ana,<\/p>\n<p>You wrote a letter to me your sophomore year of high school. I know I haven\u2019t responded, but I haven\u2019t forgotten about you. I remember what you\u2019re like, even now. You\u2019re in 10th grade. Defiant in your looks, a fresh pixie cut makes its debut and stays until you decide to grow it out in college. Your nails are painted black. You love to wear that navy blue NASA bomber jacket your aunt got you in Houston, and you still sleep with your childhood stuffed hippo, \u201cAkka.\u201d You have newly unshackled teeth still stained from where your braces used to be.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>You wrote me a letter and it\u2019s taken six years for me to write back. I want to apologize for the delay. I hope you\u2019ll accept my response.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I can actually remember exactly where you were when you wrote this. It was a writing exercise your homeroom teacher made you do, and you were so non-committal about it you didn\u2019t even open a Google Doc, just the Notes app on your phone. You\u2019re lucky I even found this thing. You begin with \u201c<em>Hello old lady. I\u2019m being forced to write this against my will.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>Setting aside the fact that I resent that introduction, hello to you, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In the letter you tell me lots of things: the music you like, the shows you\u2019re watching, the people you call friends. You tell me, \u201c<em>The kind of music I\u2019m listening to is indie I think? Just Declan McKenna, Jack Stauber, and some other shit thrown in the mix. Sure it might be cringe to look back on but at least I don\u2019t listen to Twenty One Pilots anymore. Good God.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Luckily for you, I\u2019m not so judgmental. I still listen to that kind of music pretty frequently. In fact, I never deleted the playlist you made. It has a new name and a lot of new songs sporadically added throughout the years, but the seeds you sowed are still there. Unluckily for you, I still know every Twenty One Pilots lyric. That\u2019s right, when I get nostalgic for you I\u2019ll put them on sometimes. Sorry, not sorry. But I\u2019ve found some new musicians I like that you probably would have hated, like The Garden and Eyedress, or maybe even Men I Trust.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I remember what you used to watch. \u201cSupernatural,\u201d \u201cDoctor Who,\u201d \u201cAdventure Time,\u201d \u201cBreaking Bad.\u201d You loved \u201cNew Girl,\u201d right? Or was that another Ana, a couple years later? You write, <em>\u201cMarco\u2019s in college so we\u2019ve been rewatching Steven Universe on FaceTime together. I kind of wanna try watching The Mandalorian.\u201d <\/em>Marco isn\u2019t in college anymore. Your brother has been back at home working for two years. Now it\u2019s you who needs to FaceTime in order to see the rest of your family. Funnily enough, we watch the same stuff together even now, re-experiencing old shows of our youth through a screen. In my freshman year of college, I\u2019d fall asleep to some of these old episodes, nostalgic for you. Do you find that cringey?<\/p>\n<p>You tell me about your friends. You list names on and on, stopping occasionally to remind me how you know them. But some names I don\u2019t even recognize. Who is Nathaniel? Sarah who? Other names make me smile \u2014 a lot of these people I still speak regularly with, even visiting them whenever I can during the semester. There\u2019s one name you mention that makes me wince. I don\u2019t talk to that friend anymore. I hope you\u2019ll understand.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>You end the letter with questions for me.<\/p>\n<p>You ask, <em>\u201cStill wearing masks?\u201d<\/em> Right. When I was 15 it was 2020. You were certain the pandemic would last years \u2014 and you weren\u2019t wrong! But we don\u2019t take precautions like we used to. At least you still get your booster once a year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>I\u2019m currently in an advanced journalism class and I really enjoy it. I think I have two articles published currently but my third is about to be, which is really exciting. Do you ever continue it?<\/em>\u201d Oh, honey, do I ever. Last month I went to Austin, Texas to cover the <a href=\"https:\/\/sxsw.com\/about\/\">South by Southwest<\/a> Film Festival. How\u2019s that for continuing journalism?<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cYou must be in college now. Where did you end up even going? Applications sound terrifying and I am not ready to do them.\u201d <\/em>Would you believe me if I told you that you\u2019ll get into the University of Michigan? I think you\u2019d laugh in my face, but it\u2019s true. And you\u2019ll love it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I suppose you started running out of time in your homeroom class because you begin asking broader questions. <em>\u201cWhat are you most passionate about<\/em>?\u201d You didn\u2019t know this when you were 15. You\u2019d think at 21, I\u2019d have a better answer for you than \u201ceverything.\u201d <em>\u201cDo you like your body?\u201d \u201cDo you wear makeup?\u201d \u201cDo you like yourself now?\u201d<\/em> Yes, yes, yes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-3    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>I have some questions for you, even if you can\u2019t answer them. Are you upset about the long hair? I\u2019m more feminine now. I\u2019m wearing a skirt as I\u2019m writing this letter. Are you disappointed? My favorite color is sage green now, not maroon. And I love mushrooms, a food you swore was the most disgusting thing in the whole world. What did you think I\u2019d be like, at 21?<\/p>\n<p>Are you proud of me?<\/p>\n<p>I know you can\u2019t respond. I\u2019ve waited a little too long to write to you, and I fear I\u2019ve missed you completely. I don\u2019t see you in the mirror anymore; I can only see you in old photos, some terrible Snapchat memories I keep getting recommended and somehow on my Mcard, the senior photo I submitted still holding some resemblance to you. Funnily enough, remnants of that pixie cut are harder to avoid than that stubborn pimple that keeps coming back on your cheek.<\/p>\n<p>I want you to know that I love you, regardless of how cringy or nerdy you think you are. I love your creativity and fearlessness. I love how ridiculous you could be. I want you to know there\u2019s nothing I would have changed about you. You with your short hair and bold eyeliner you\u2019d try to master in your bathroom late at night before showering. You with your TikTok obsession and intense preoccupations with Pedro Pascal. I\u2019m sorry I didn\u2019t write to you sooner. I\u2019m sorry I have to say goodbye in the form of a letter and not a hug.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>All I can really say is thank you, and I\u2019ll miss you.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-4    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>Best regards,\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>You.<\/p>\n<p><em>TV Beat Editor Ana Torresarpi can be reached at <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/arts\/b-side\/a-goodbye-to-my-younger-self\/mailto:atorresa@umich.edu\"><em>atorresa@umich.edu<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear 15-year-old Ana, You wrote a letter to me your sophomore year of high school. I know I haven\u2019t responded, but I haven\u2019t forgotten about you. I remember what you\u2019re like, even now. You\u2019re in 10th grade. Defiant in your looks, a fresh pixie cut makes its debut and stays until you decide to grow [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[841,4606],"class_list":{"0":"post-5020","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-goodbye","9":"tag-younger"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5020"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5022,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5020\/revisions\/5022"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}