Don’t Forget Me

by Lleyton M. Kane

Editor's note: The author is a 17-year-old high school senior writing to his younger self.

You're expecting wisdom. Some hard-won insight I'll be grateful for later, delivered backward through time like a telegram from the wreckage. If only I'd known. That kind of thing.

But I don't know anything yet. That's the point. You're the one who forgot.

Keep the blue notebook. The one with the water stain on the cover that looks like a face if you turn it sideways. I know it seems useless. I know you'll think you've outgrown it. You haven't.

Don't throw away the parking ticket from November. You'll want to remember where you were that day, even if you don't yet know why.

Walk the long way home on the first warm day of March. Every year. I can't tell you what you'll see. I just know you need to be there when it happens.

Say yes to the thing that sounds boring. The dinner. The errand. The drive that seems pointless. You'll want to say no. You'll have reasons. Say yes anyway.

Wear the jacket until it falls apart. Then keep it.

This is the part where I'm supposed to tell you about people. How to handle them. Who to trust. Who to let go.

I don't know yet. I haven't met most of them. And the ones I have—I'm still getting wrong. I'm still flinching when I should be reaching. Still talking when I should be waiting. Still walking away too early because I think I already know how the sentence ends.

So here's what I'm asking you to remember:

Be patient with people. Not the kind of patience that tolerates. The kind that waits. Be open enough with them, and trusting enough with yourself, to let them surprise you.

Because they will.

The one you've already written off. The one who keeps showing up wrong. The one you think you understand because you've watched them long enough to build a theory. Your theory is incomplete. You're missing the part they haven't shown you yet. You're missing the part they don't know how to show.

Wait for it.

Not because you owe them something. Because you owe yourself the chance to be wrong about someone in a way that makes you larger instead of smaller.

I don't know who these people are yet. But I know they're coming. And I know you'll be tempted to close the door early. You'll have evidence.

Wait anyway.

I know what you're thinking. That I'm young. That this is easy to say now, before the disappointments accumulate, before the evidence builds, before I learn what you've learned.

You're right. I am young. I don't know what's coming.

But that's exactly why I'm writing this.

Because you're going to forget what it felt like to not know. You're going to mistake your exhaustion for wisdom. You're going to think that the scar tissue is the same thing as skin.

It's not.

I'm not giving you advice. I'm asking you for something.

Don't become the person who writes the other letter. The one that travels backward with a list of warnings. The one that says protect yourself when it means close yourself. The one that confuses disappointment with understanding.

Stay patient with people. Stay open. Stay trusting enough in yourself to wait.

And while you're at it—stay patient with me, too. I'm doing the best I can with what I have. I don't know anything yet. But I know some things are worth protecting, even if I can't defend them with evidence.

Especially if I can't.

One more thing.

On a day I can't describe yet—a day that will feel ordinary until it doesn't—someone will ask you a question. It won't seem important. You'll be tired. You'll want to give the easy answer.

Don't.

Wait. Think. Say the true thing, even if it's harder.

I can't tell you what the question is.

But when it comes, you'll remember I said it was coming. Maybe that's enough.

That's all I've got.

That's all I know.

Don't forget me.

Addendum

Keep the receipt from the hardware store. The one from March. You'll think it doesn't matter.

Keep it anyway.

Don't wear the brown shoes on the 14th. Any month. Wear the others.

When the man at the gas station asks if you need anything else, say yes. You don't know what yet. Neither do I. But say yes.

The book with the torn cover—the one you'll find at the back of the shelf in the house that isn't yours yet—don't open it until December. Not the December you're thinking of. The one after.

There's a photo in a drawer you haven't opened in years. Behind the photo is another photo. Look at that one.

The voicemail you'll want to delete: don't. You'll want to make space. You'll think it's nothing.

Listen to it once a year, at least.

On a Tuesday in autumn—I can't tell you which one—you'll have the choice between two routes.

One is faster. Take the other.

When the dog barks at nothing, look anyway.

The window that sticks: fix it before winter. Not after. Before.

There's a woman you'll meet twice. The first time won't matter. The second time, remember her hands. That's all. Just remember them.

The conversation you'll overhear in the waiting room—the one about the red door—write it down. I know it won't make sense. Write it down anyway.

When someone says your name like they’ve stopped believing it belongs to you, don’t correct them. Let it hurt.

When your phone dies at the restaurant, don't borrow one. Sit with it. Watch the room.

Pay attention to what you throw away on the first day of the month. Not every month. But most.

The letter that arrives with no return address: open it outside.

The flight you'll almost miss—miss it. The next one is the one you need.

Don't answer the door on a night when you've already turned off the lights. Not because of what's there. Because of what you'll say.

The question you'll want to ask at the funeral—ask it. Not there. Later. But ask it.

When someone hands you something wrapped in newspaper, unwrap it slowly. Watch where the paper falls.

I know how this sounds.

I know you'll think I'm inventing weight where there isn't any. Assigning meaning to accidents. Mistaking coincidence for instruction.

Maybe I am.

But here's what I know: you'll remember this list. You'll be standing somewhere ordinary—a parking lot, a hallway, a line at the post office—and one of these instructions will surface. You won't know why. You'll have no reason to trust it.

Trust it anyway.

There's a sentence someone will say to you. It will sound like a question but it isn't. It will sound small but it isn't. You won't recognize it when it comes because it won't announce itself.

I can't tell you the sentence. I don't have it yet.

But when you hear it—when you feel something shift behind your ribs, a door opening in a room you didn't know was there—don't speak. Don't answer. Don't fill the silence.

Wait.

Let it land.

The silence after is where everything lives.

One more:

There's a moment coming when none of this will matter. The receipts. The routes. The hands you were supposed to remember. It will all feel like noise, like pattern-making, like the kind of superstition you thought you'd outgrown.

You'll want to throw this list away. You'll have reasons.

Don't.

Not because I'm right. I might not be.

But because you'll need to remember that someone&—mdash;somewhere, somewhen—thought the ordinary was worth protecting. Thought the small things might be load-bearing. Thought you were worth warning, even without evidence.

Even without knowing why.

That's all.

Do with it what you will.

I won't be there when the instructions matter. I won't see whether you follow them. I won't know if any of it made a difference.

But I wrote them anyway.

Because that's what you do when you love someone you haven't met yet.

You leave what you can.

You hope it's enough.

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