Recently, I turned in a creative non-fiction piece about my high school awkwardness and what I took away from that as an awkward college student. It left me wondering what I would tell my teenaged self about the future and how the world works, so I decided to write her a meaningful letter (outside of telling her that there's other stores besides Hot Topic).
Dear High School Bekah,
No one is looking at you, I promise.
I know you think that everyone you pass in the hallway is judging how you carry your books and how your hair looks and if your lipstick is smudged, but I promise you, no one is noticing any of that. High school kids only care about themselves and where they need to be in the next five minutes, so dress for you and what you like. Wear makeup or don't. Just stay true to yourself and carry those books with two hands, because you don't look stupid.
Those horribly embarrassing awkward moments? You'll be able to laugh about them sooner than you think.
Your awkward profile pictures won't follow you to the grave. They'll be hilarious two years from now. Those times you embarrassed yourself in front of various crushes will be gut-busting stories you can tell at parties. Everything that brings your world to a halt now, you'll be thankful for in a couple years. It's totally OK to laugh at yourself.
Don't chase after people who won't give you the time of day.
Not everyone is going to want to be your best friend, so don't try and wish you were like everyone else around you. Find the people who like you for you and stick with them. You'll save yourself a lot of time and trouble when you stop trying to befriend people you'll forget about next year.
Follow your heart. Do what you know you love.
Don't shy away from theatre because you don't really know anyone in it. Don't wait to join speech because you think you won't be any good. Throw your inhibitions away and do what you're passionate about. You'll find your people and you'll find your favorite memories if you just follow your heart.
The bad times are only going to make you stronger.
There will be plenty of times where it feels like you're alone in the universe. That's when you'll figure out how to love and spent time with yourself. There will be times when you feel like you haven't got anywhere to turn, and that's when you'll put time and energy into your passions and start seeing growth and improvement in yourself and your life. You'll learn how to grow thick skin and ignore petty things that don't mean anything. When life gets tough, you'll learn how to survive without help, and that's such a valuable skill.
You don't have to keep in touch with everyone.
Odds are you'll lose touch with everyone you're worried about impressing right now. And that's totally fine. The people that really and truly matter will stay in your life and make long-lasting friendships that will remain alive and well long after you've forgotten everyone else's names.
And one day, everything will make sense.
Pretty soon, you'll understand that you went through all these fleeting friendships to get to the people you can see in your long-term future. You'll be able to look back on high school and laugh. You'll be thankful for the things you learned and everything else, good and bad. You'll be glad that you are the person you are now, and if you could see where you are now, you'd probably think the future you is pretty neat. So just hold on. Everything will sort itself out.
