Dear High School Self,

Listen, you aren’t going to peak in high school, so relax.

If I could go back and tell myself some things that I wish I would have known then that I know now, the list could go on forever. But I’ll just start with accepting yourself for who you are, what you are, and whomever you are becoming.

If I could go back, I would first tell myself to be less aggressive. Not everyone enjoys the inside voice that is really an outside voice. The level of being obnoxious needs to be taken down a few hundred notches. This would have helped me so much.

I would tell myself that your body image is okay, and not to take everything you read or see too personally. It’s okay to have curves and it's okay to not be a size 0. Boys, and girls, like muscle on you, trust me. Don’t pay attention to what the other girls are saying about your size or about the way you look, because screw them, they peaked in high school and you peaked afterwards, it happens.

If you like girls, so what, and if you like boys, so what; like whatever you like. There’s a high possibility that your parents are still going to love you for whoever you are and whomever you become, and if things don’t go that way, then they need a reality check. Eventually, they’re going to see it when you fall in love with a girl and bring her home to meet them, and they’re going to smile because you are smiling.

Come out of the closet sooner, all your friends are going to anyway. Also, tell your friends when you’re ready; they aren’t going to love you any less.

The first break up you have with a boy really isn’t going to bother you that much, one, because you like girls, and two, because really, were you actually in love? You’re going to realize what love actually is, and then you’re going to realize what heartbreak is in college, just like you found out what it was like in high school. You’re not really going to care, and you’ll be onto the next thing. Some mornings, you’re going to wish you never woke up, and you’re going to want a never-ending supply of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream for a couple years. The point is you’re going to realize who you are after you break up with that boy.

Don’t stab your salad at lunch junior year; your friends won’t talk to you for months, and won’t ever let you live it down, even five years later. You aren’t really cool if you hang out with people who are older then you, but it is fun to visit them when they go to college a year before you, which you’ll make some of the best memories of your life, so thank them in advance.

You aren’t ever going to not care about what people think, but the more you practice loving yourself, and the more you practice how to not care about what people think, the better you will become at it. It takes time and it takes skill, but starting early is going to benefit you in the long run.

The girl who you sit next to in history and who gives you all the answers isn’t going to matter in college. Thank her for the answers, but stop asking for the answers, they wont help you in a few years, they will only hurt you in the long run. Try your absolute hardest on all of your exams, take harder classes, and push yourself to be the absolute best person you can be.

You’ll leave high school with just a handful of friends who you still talk to, and that’s okay. Your best friends going to go away to college while you’re a senior, and that’s okay; you’ll still be best friends five years later. You grow separately and you grow together, the effort you put in matters.

High school is hopefully not going to be the top 10 best times of your life. I say this because I hope you have better times than that, but the key is to enjoy it while it lasts. It’s the most weird, scary, influential four years of your life, so enjoy the ride.