A LETTER TO MY 16 YEAR OLD SELF

Dear child,

This will be the hardest of your teen years but fear not, everything you go through will only make you stronger.

Let me start with school. This high school you are in will build you but will also damage parts of you. You will make life-long friends and acquire life-long principles. I know right now you feel like you have too many responsibilities you do not deserve but you can and will make it. In fact, responsibilities will always fall on you from now on. You will get to be stronger in time.

This is when you first heard God speak to you and what He said will be confirmed by many people later in life. It is only till now, in your early twenties (did you ever think you would get here) that you will start to build the picture, a sketch really of what path your life takes.

All that religious jargon people fed you will just traumatise and disorient you. All is not lost because you will slowly learn about who God is and how to have a relationship with Him. My dear, I have to also tell you that this learning is a life-long process I don’t think you can exhaust everything. You will lose some loved-ones but there will also be miracles in your life.

About boys and men: this was the year you met all those older guys. Well, B and T are far from you now and you’ll be glad that nothing happened with them. You will get to meet people you are far more compatible with. Remember A, you met him once at your house. You will meet again and it is from him that you will find out that men too have drama. There were others in your life but R is the one who will have the most impact not necessarily in a positive way. You will get cynical about men but there will come a time you will be indifferent. Am not sure that you get to know how to balance between the cynicism and the indifference. There will be many regrets in the future but these things, I have said will only make you stronger, sometimes harder.

Your family is alright. You won’t believe it now but mom will be one of your best friends though you will still fight as much as you agree. You will come to understand that your family is the best thing that ever happened to you. The freedom you always longed for you will have and you will slip a few times along the way too.

You will learn not to judge people. You will find yourself in those situations you judge them upon and you will not always come out better than they did. You will also learn that there is something like being too understanding and you will get burned a number of times because of that. And that sense of humour of yours will lead to a number of fallouts with people including friends. You do not learn how to fully control it even up to now.

The most important thing to know is that you will grow up. Do not be in a rush. Everything has its perfect timing. Life gets harder but you grow harder too.

With love from,

Your-kind-of-but-not-totally-battered-by-life-twenty-something-year-old-self.