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Student’s uplifting late-night letter to self goes viral

Taylor Johnson's writing strikes a chord, gets picked up by Huffington Post

Published: May 7, 2015   

By Alesia Schaefer
Rogers Correspondent

Taylor Johnson, freshman at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, poses in front of the New York City skyline with her father, Mark Johnson.

ROGERS — Taylor Johnson had no clue what would transpire when she posted a letter to herself on her Facebook page.

In a matter of hours, Johnson, a freshman at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, found that her “open letter to her freshman year in college” had gone viral with more than 2,000 views.

The “dear 3 a.m.” letter, as it’s called, written in the wee hours one April morning when she was having a particularly difficult time falling off to sleep, was her way of getting everything out of her head and on to a page in hopes of making sense of it all.

“Isn’t it funny,” the letter begins, “that you can go 18 years of your life feeling like you have it all figured out, just to find out you still don’t remember how to do your own laundry, and this is only the beginning.”

Her journey of self-discovery drafted in the course of a morning refers to “the lessons (that) have guided her freshman year” and reminders of how to survive life “on my (almost) own.”

“All my life, I’ve been huge into writing letters to myself, friends, and family,” 19-year-old Johnson told Arkansas Catholic. “It’s always been the way I express my feelings the best.”

Johnson’s entry was so heartfelt, she decided to share it with a friend who encouraged her to post it to a blog and share it with other friends and family. What happened next even astonished her.

“I posted the letter on wordpress.com on April 15 because I didn’t know how else to share such a long letter with friends and family,” Johnson said, “but I had no idea that the letter would spread like it did and impact the lives that it has.”

Attention like that on the internet, well, attracts attention, and pretty soon, Johnson had the Huffington Post tweeting her.

Huffington Post, a U.S. online news aggregator, scrutinizes the Internet for whatever is trending and Johnson’s letter was doing just that.

Within the span of a few days, she was asked to fill out information and post a short biography and the letter on HuffPo.

Johnson’s piece got enough views in a 24-hour period to warrant moving it to the home page of the website.

Of interest in Johnson’s recounting of her first year in college is not just her upbeat, inspirational words, but her references to God. She credits God with the “real blessings of the people bestowed on the journey” and “that God has a plan and that people are truly sent into your life when you need them most and leave when their purpose is fulfilled.”

Johnson, along with her two siblings, attended Christ the King School in Fort Smith and St. Vincent de Paul School in Rogers before she moved to Tulsa, Okla., where she resided with her parents, Mark and Edie Johnson, until she graduated from Bishop Kelley High School in May 2014.

“When you first come to college, you are so excited to be on your own and not have any rules,” Johnson said. “I think this is the time you fall away from God the most. As first semester comes to an end, you realize God is your constant and you start finding who you are in relation to your faith. At least for me, this is when I began to make my faith constant and strong and unique to the person that I am.”

Her advice to those heading to college in the fall for the first time: “Start your journey of finding who you are with God the day you step onto campus and all the rest of your adventure will be a piece of cake with him by your side.”

Johnson’s letter has had more than 150,000 views and has been shared on Facebook more than 10,000 times. She said her writing is done on a voluntary basis according to when she can’t sleep and her thoughts are overwhelming.

This might happen fairly often because she posted again April 29 on Huffington Post with a blog entry titled, “Today I Let Go, Tomorrow I Fly.”

Her message has certainly struck a chord with followers. But, any detractors?

“My older brother thought I had been drinking too much coffee,” she said, with a laugh. “I am a very light-hearted person, generally, and to write such a serious piece was completely out of left field for my friends and family.”

Readers have thanked her for helping them feel uplifted despite the trials and tribulations of college life.

“The message of my letters, in brief, is: you will lose friends, gain friends, find that your parents are your support system, and will need to love yourself no matter what is happening in your life, “ said Johnson about the posts she has made to date.

“The letter has had an overwhelmingly positive effect on so many young girls my age, which caused them to reach out and say thank you,” Johnson said. “That my words have touched the hearts of so many people I have no connection with other than the Internet.”

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