A Letter To My 16 Year Old Self...

I saw an interesting tweet the other day that got me thinking- If you could give one piece of advice to your 16 year old self, what would it be?

I’d have A LOT to say to my 16 year old self.  Since I have more space here, I decided to write her a letter.

Dear Siima,

You probably won’t want to hear anything I have to say, because you’re going through a particularly anti-social, teenage angst-ridden phase, but if I could just bother you to take your headphones off for a minute, I’d like to share some pearls of wisdom with you.

First of all.  That drama at school? No big deal.  Seriously.  You will all have moved on to the next argument in a few weeks and all will be forgotten.  Also, I’d suggest that you pay a bit more attention in your History class, because you ARE actually going to take it for GCSEs.  You are going to drop Design and Technology and take up R.E instead.  But guess what?  You’ll love it! And you’ll get an excellent grade. A*, if you must know ;).

Now, the issue of body image.  Yes, I know, you are bombarded with images of skinny girls in the magazines.  Then there’s that girl in your dorm room who looks like a bean pole and insists she looks like a beached whale.  Ignore her.  There is nothing wrong with your body.  Everything will even out, and all your curves will come out in the right places… Yes, your boobs will get bigger, have no fear.  And you may lament the boys ignoring you and going for your blonde counterparts, but that will change.  Oh yes it will.

Oh and another thing.  You might think your parents don’t ‘get’ you.  Trust me, they do.  And for the most part, they are right.  Listen to them.  Get to know them.   The good news is, when you’re older, when you need them the most, you will realize that they are two of the best friends you could ever have.  Treasure them.

Same goes for your siblings.  Don’t get me wrong- some sibling rivalry is quite healthy.  But you four all come from the same place, and you are going to need each other for the rest of your lives.  Treasure them.

Now, as for that guy you’ve had a crush on for a while.  He’s a great guy.  I would advise against admitting your crush in that anonymous Valentines card you are planning on sending though.  He won’t quite know how to deal with it, and your friendship will suffer for a while.  Good news is, you guys will reconnect in the years to come, you will be well and truly over him, and your friendship will be back on track.

Career-wise, things won’t exactly go as planned.  But you will be happy, and constantly learning.  You will be surrounded by music.  Oh, and people will actually want to read stuff you write.  So keep that imagination going, ok?

Finally, before I bore you to death, I thought you’d like to know that you will grow into a woman who knows the value of self-worth. A very important lesson.

You’re going to go far, girly.

Love,

Your 32 year old self.


P.S  Forget Brad Pitt.  There’s this guy coming along called Idris Elba who will blow that dude out of the water! 

Comments

  1. Miriam Mimi Nagadya20 February 2014 at 11:20

    Warm, touching and brilliant!! Bravo :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown2 March 2014 at 21:13

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Unknown3 March 2014 at 19:10

    Inspired by this, I wrote a letter to my 30yr old self
    http://aidahn.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/a-letter-to-my-30yr-old-self/

    ReplyDelete

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