Hey Daniela! It’s you from May of 2023, and I’m writing to the you in May of 2022. I just wanted to give you a run down of what’s happened so far. And, in true Daniela fashion, there’s no better way to do so but in listicle form!

1. The college stuff

Yes, yes, I bet you’re dying to know what ended up happening with college. You always kept your cool when it came to college, and it payed off because you got into the school that you quickly fell in love with—UCLA! Remember when you visited in May last year and it brought you to tears because you were worried about how much you liked it? Well, those tears were not wasted because you got in AND have officially committed to going! Congratulations! All the anxiety and stress that the idea of college sent swirling around in your head can now be put to ease. As for your major…well, you’ll just have to wait to see what you ended up choosing.

2. Love life *wink, wink, eyebrow raise*

If you were dying to hear about the last one, you’re practically reaching out of your grave to listen to this one. So…your romantic endeavors in the past have not been failures per se, BUT, they have also not been successes. You never really wanted to be in an official high school relationship because it’s just too much pressure—believe me I would know. But luckily, you found exactly what you were looking for this year… You found a wonderful guy friend/fling that you enjoyed rom-com status dates with. He’s very polite, very smart, and very cute. He’s pretty much a Fitzgerald. If any other people may be reading this letter from the future, a “Fitzgerald” is what Daniela calls a guy that is the full package. She had a dream about a guy named Fitzgerald who completely swept her off her feet and ever since then, the perfect guy in her eyes is a “Fitzgerald”!

3. How was/is Rosary senior life?

I know you’ve felt iffy about Rosary throughout high school. The school itself is fantastic, but your doubts stemmed from the fear that you were not a good fit for the school, not the other way around. This year, you’ve really come to embrace Rosary. You put your critiques and cynicism aside, and you learned to love the school wide events that everyone goes feral for. You tried to make it a goal to scream your heart out at every rally and attend every football game on theme, and this year, you’ve succeeded! Academic wise, this has also been a successful year so far. You’ll be graduating with straight A’s and a great amount of pride in your achievements academically.

4. How’s your social life?

Socially, this has been the year where you branched out the most. You’ve started attending more parties, more dances, and just going out of your way to make more connections in general. You struggled significantly junior year due to the fact that you could not put your pride or anxiety aside to reach out to others. Now, you no longer have such a huge fear of rejection. You’ve realized that when it comes to attempting to forge friendships, your advances will more often be accepted than rejected. Despite making new friends, you still have remained in your primary group and have strengthened a lot of the friendships you previously had within it.

5. Most importantly, how are you?

You’re doing really well. Mentally and physically, you’ve really learned what it means to take care of yourself over the past year. You recognized what it means to love yourself and your body, and you have actually started putting consistent yet challenging work into improving yourself. This is the year you really, truly began to fully embrace yourself. Mentally, you have been doing well. Despite not much happening, junior year was your most emotional year. Crying over the smallest things was not unusual for you then, but now, you’ve learned to control your emotions. YOU now control when you cry, and crying no longer controls YOU. You’ve come to realize that you can’t keep allowing small disappointments on behalf of friends or boys to get to you because in a matter of years, they’ll be incredibly insignificant. Overall, you’re feeling the best that you have ever felt in high school. Good on you.

Despite some changes that you have endured over the past year, you’re still somewhat the same. You still spend hours of your week watching movies. You still pull all-nighters to finish your cheesy romance novels. And, you still cry every time you think about your family members getting old. Although there are bigger changes to come, with some being easy and others being difficult, you’ll always manage to…umm…manage. Yes. You’ll always manage to manage.