My parents always told me that my future was what I needed to be focused on, always, my future was the most important part of my life.
The future was when I would be an adult, the future was when I would be a professional, when I would be a whole person. I've never really felt like a whole person, just a functional but ultimately vacant thing hopping from one to-do list item in life to the next. With the ultimate goal, of course, of perfectly landing at the finish line of 'future.' I am going to be 18 soon, but it doesn't really matter. That's not the 'future', at least not for me. When I was sitting in that auditorium valecdictorian didn't really mean anything to me, just as it never had before. I realized that all the kids around me were truly happy. They were smiling and excited and happy because they had a future. They had to have known something I didn't.
I still don't know. Now, I don't think I ever will.