The Ghost of Garret Past

I recently received a letter from myself that I wrote ten years ago. My high school AP government teacher had us write them, then held on to them for us until mailing them a couple weeks ago. I find my letter extremely amusing. First of all, it is always very amusing to go back and read old journals, because I'm astonished at how stupid I used to be. (In high school I burnt my journal from elementary school because I was embarrassed that it was just page upon page of "I hate Mrs. Orend and I love Alicea Ardito.") I think everybody has this experience, and it's probably good to realize that stuff you once thought meant the end of the world turns out to be hilarious. Second, it's amusing how wrong my predictions about the future were. The 18-year old Northern Virginia Republican Mormon did not expect to become a 28-year old atheist Berkeley liberal, to say the least. Good thing I'm happy the way I am.

Anyway, I'm writing a longer essay about the letter, which I might post here at a later date, but for now, here are the funniest quotes from the letter itself:

You don’t have to be married yet, but you probably should be by now, because it’ll be harder the longer you wait. At least, I think it will.

If you’ll remember, you won the “most bitter, prematurely filled with angst” superlative your senior year of high school. You wanted to win so that you would have an incentive to change. You better have changed. You used to sit on a trash can and make fun of people who walked by, and it got you the nickname Oscar, as in Oscar the Grouch. Be nice! Be nice.

You like Milton Friedman a lot, but it might be fun to own a t-shirt shop.

Keep the family tight, remember your roots at the Hill Cumorah Pageant, summers in Rochester, the cabin on Dotty lake outside Huntsville, Ontario, and trampolines.

Comments

  1. ReaRiahRoa7:31 PM

    Republican - eh?

    Would have never guessed ... I was too ... I guess I still technically am - but in Berkeley, I keep that in the closet! Out here it is not that uncommon for us to go liberal.

    I particularly like your last quote - "keep it tight" is oh so very Mormon.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous11:42 AM

    I got that letter too! I totally forgot what the origin of it was- my Mom and I were trying to figure it out.

    ReplyDelete
  3. my name is amy10:34 AM

    I can't wait for our mortified journal reading night!

    ReplyDelete

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