Dear 17 year old me,
The next few years are going be tough, but they’re going to change your life.
You’re going to make the best memories, but go through the lowest points of
your life. I wish I could prepare you for it, so here’s the letter that I wish
I could have sent you.
First of all, enjoy this year! Five years from now, when people ask if you
could go back and relive just one year again, you’ll say this one. This will be
your year of partying, and of lots of new experiences. You will make some
really stupid mistakes, but ones that you will never regret because of the way
they changed you.
You will get the most drunk you have ever got in your life, and vow not to
drink again after throwing up in various embarrassing places. You will embarrass
yourself at parties, and people won’t let you forget it years later. Cherish
this time. This is probably going to be the best year of your life. Stop
wishing your life away. You will keep wishing you were 18 – an adult, but trust
me, being 17 will be so much better.
If any boy
wants you to be his other woman, his dirty secret while he’s got a girlfriend,
don’t do it. He will make you believe that you’re special and you will be naive
enough to fall for it. You will swear never to make this mistake again, but
then do the exact same thing a few years later. LEARN THE LESSON EARLY. You
will just get hurt. You will fall in and out of love over the next few years,
but nobody will compare to your first love. After thinking you have found “The
One”, he will leave you when you least expect it, but you’ll be okay with that
and understand that everything happens for a reason.
Don’t listen to other people’s, or the media’s, idea of perfection. Sure, you’ll
lose some weight and start to look great. People will be jealous of you and ask
your secrets, but you won’t tell them. You will let it spiral out of control. I
wish I could have told you before that it isn’t worth it. You will destroy your
body and ruin your family holiday by being hospitalized before you finally
admit that you have a problem and get better. I wish I could have warned you
about this, but I’m glad you finally figured it out on your own.
Good things will happen, but bad things will too. You will pass your A-Levels
but get rejected from your dream college, ending up at a different one on the
same course. You will learn that going to college will be the biggest mistake
of your life, and it will be the only regret that you have. You will fall in
and out of love, and get cheated on by people who you thought you could trust.
It’s not nice, but it’s okay. It makes you stronger as a person, and more
independent.
You will lose some close members of your family over the next few years, and it
will be difficult, but you’ll get through it. You will learn not to take any of
your family for granted, and start telling them you love them more and more as
you lose more people along the way. You will face your fear of funerals until
they become second nature to you, wish is something I wish I could protect you
from, but is unfortunately a part of life. You will struggle, but you will
still be there to support your family – especially your Dad – and he will thank
you for it. You are stronger than you think you are.
On the other hand, you will gain lots of life experience in jobs. You will do
jobs that you thought you would never want to do and love them. You will also
experience being sacked after making a stupid mistake. You will get jobs that
you only dreamed of and thought would never happen. Cherish this – it won’t
last forever.
Cherish your friends. You will lose some along the way, but your closest
friends will be there forever. They will still be the ones wiping your tears
and picking you up off the floor when you need them most. Don’t let petty
arguments ruin your friendship. These friends are priceless, and you will never
replace them.
You will move out and live 300 miles away, where you know nobody. Everyone will
think you’re not brave enough to do it, but you will prove them all wrong. You
will love it and you will gain so much independence that you feel like a whole
new woman. This will get snatched away from you when you least expect it, and
you’ll have to move back in with your parents. It will be hard, but remember
how lucky you are to have them and how much you love them.
I wouldn’t tell you to do anything different than what you have (except go to
college!) but I wish I could have warned you about some of the hardships that
were to come. However, on the bright side, you will become a much stronger
woman than you ever thought you were capable of being, and that is most certainly
something to cherish.
Love from,
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