Dear Adult Me

Dear Adult Me,
Yes I'm looking at you.
I know it's strange to see that weird girl with the black t-shirt and jeans, both too big for her, staring at you from across a crowded train station, her purple hair standing out miles away.
Think about it though. Don't you remember that tee? The one with the TARDIS and how you yelled in happiness when it came in the mail and jumped around the kitchen counter for a few minutes?
Do you remember me?
Do you remember that grin? The one that you spent a few hours in front of the mirror perfecting when you were 13? The one that you're positive still looks ugly? Does anyone like that grin now? Is there someone waiting for you at the end of the line?
You know there isn't someone waiting for me. Yet I'm still grinning. Try to remember where that girl came from. School?
Oh, yes! Drama.
Do you remember the nerds, the singing, the innuendo, the crashing of furniture in the back closet halfway through the play that night? How at first you were horrified, but then you heard someone in the wood room drop a can of paint and everyone in the closet started laughing. There were guys and girls, nerds and jocks, sneakers and high heels. There were gay couples and straight couples, goth girls and preppy girls, straightened blonde hair and dyed purple hair. And yet you were all one. All laughing and smiling, crying and hugging, singing and dancing, lecturing and listening. So many different things, so many people, and you accepted them all.
Do you still do that? Are you even surrounded by a diverse group of people anymore? Do you accept them all, or have you fallen into the trap of shunning them for 'their own good'?
Do you have a job? Is it fun, making videos and stories, shelving books? Or is it a job in the city, sitting at a big desk, staring out over your territory, your domain, signing papers, feeling powerful? Do you enjoy that feeling? Do you think I would?
Think about who's happier.
You're happy because society has told you to be happy. You're happy because you've been told that a big company, and a big check, and a husband and 2.5 kids is the perfect life, the ideal model.
Look at me.
Am I happy?
Has society told me to be happy? Yes. Like this? No.
How many of your friends are real? How many of them would let you cry into their shoulder for half an hour, and then have the tact to say nothing about it, but care enough to offer up their shoulder in case you ever need to let your tears out on again? How many would  write you essays about who's more of an epic hero, Sherlock or Moriarty? How many would talk with you about vanity and trust and how others affect your own life, holding midnight philosophical conversations in the basement at sleepovers while listening to independent british artists in the background, laughing whenever they mess up in their own song. How many will write stories about your inner pride (it was a quiet tea-drinking dragon then. Has that dragon grown up and become a hoarder now? Or has it acquired a reputation for having a sharp sword and a twitchy trigger finger?) and help you write when you need to?
I have those friends.
Are you feeling lost now?
You have this huge world, this huge perfect life; but it's all a lie. It's a fantasy not created by you, but by society. Live your own fantasy. I am.
Do you even remember what your own fantasy is? I hope you have. I hope for both of our sakes that you do, that you haven't been sucked in too deep into this madness that is popular culture.
So when you're feeling lost, and when you realize that this all a lie, come back to me. Remember who I was and how happy I was and how real it all was. Remember the wall where you put of pictures of things that you love. Remember the drawings that you doodled on the edge of biology tests, the stories you wrote and shared with friends, the Doctor Who figurines you made for acquaintances, the books that you gave out to random people on the streets to encourage reading.
Remember which direction I was looking in, and check your compass.
When all else fails, Remember.

Lots of hugs,
Teen Me.