Dear 5-Year-Old Me
Dear 5-year-old Kino,
You aren’t known as Kino yet. That’s okay. Most of your family won’t call you by it either. At least not by the time you’re 36. Maybe it doesn’t matter too much. Shakespeare said, “a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.” You probably don’t know who Shakespeare is yet either. Just ask Mom. She’ll tell you all you need to know. Probably more.
Pay attention to the things you like right now and make sure you tell Adam how good of a friend he is. You don’t get along so well in the future, but I think it is because at some point, you stopped knowing how to communicate with each other. Everyone says the growing apart thing just happens to girls and boys as they get older, but I’m pretty sure you know better. A wedge gets stuck between you two and it really hurts. But don’t worry about that. You come out of it okay. You find others who like you for you, even though you still feel like you’re on the edge of every social circle and never belong anywhere. But that does mean that you didn’t marry him at 24 like you were afraid you were going to. You think about him a lot, though. And you still think about your friendship as it was.
Yes, you do get a horse. Eventually. It takes a very long time and she is the best thing to ever happen to you, even though she is also the hardest. She turns you into a total badass, though, and she’s your…
