A letter from Dec 18th, 2021

Dear Mars, I sent this three months ago. Are you doing better? I address my previous (written in April of 2020) letter as Magnus, but now I don’t go by that. This one I labeled Mars. Should be innocuous enough, right? It’s still a part of my name, even if I don’t go by it. How is spring semester going? How did Christmas go? Do you have an iPad (we were supposed to get one for Christmas)? Did you get an iPhone 13 (we were supposed to buy one in January)? Did you get a job (did that Discover interviewer get back to you)? Are you homeless? How are you celebrating your birthday? Did you ever think about trying to start that UU club again? Did you go back to church? Did you answer your advisor? Are you even still in school? What’s going on in your life these days? I wish you could answer me. I’m not doing well. I think about ending things every day. I don’t want to turn 19, I can barely stomach 18. I feel like I’m too old already. I’ve never accomplished anything. Is it normal to feel this way? I hope you’re back in therapy. I hope you’ve moved out. I hope you live with Ivy and have a drivers license and it’s everything we wished for. I hope you’re thriving instead of scraping by. I hope you’ve pulled yourself up and are okay. Your past self, Riss