Dear Younger Me,
I am so glad you never stop day dreaming.
Thank you for looking up at the clouds and seeing a knight fighting a dragon and a giant chasing butterflies rather than a bunny or a heart. For naming the salamanders you found under the logs in your backyard and giving them a life story.
When you go to art class, follow the rules but do something totally different. If he says draw a flower, you lay on the ground and paint that flower upside down. There is a difference between breaking the rules and being creative with the rules. Ignorance to rules will get you nowhere in certain situations but bending them will get you everywhere.
You keep wearing your heart on your sleeve because that doesn’t make you weak it makes you strong. Tell people that you love them and continue to talk to the girl that has no friends in your music class. Speaking of music class, follow the sheet music. But every once in a while, take that recorder and make the loudest sound possible because we both know that is way more fun than following sheet music.
Make sure you wear your favorite tie dye shirts whenever you want. Don’t forget to pair them with your black Converse that you colored in with sharpie. When your Dad asks you, “Are you wearing that out?” you say "Absolutely". Don’t worry about picking one color for your nails, paint each one a different color and when the paint chips off don’t worry about it.
Those little journals you keep with stories in them? Never stop writing in them. They are silly and crazy but they represent you. They might not be award winning poems or stories but they sure are creative. Keep all of them, because when you’re 20 and need some inspiration or maybe a smile, you’ll pick up your own personal copy of “Lego Land.”
Oh and don’t forget to make sculptures with your food when you are done eating dinner. Mom and Dad hate it when you do that but its fine, they will get over it because you will keep doing it until your 20 years old. Use the mashed potatoes as the glue, it works best.
Never stop playing with chalk, it’s probably your favorite. After you draw your field of flowers do what you always do. Grind up the chalk and mix it with water to make chalk paint. You sit there and spend hours on your master piece, paint away. Then when you go upstairs to get ready for bed you can watch the sunset set fire to the colors in your cold-de-sac flower meadow. The neighbors will wake up in the morning and say, “there goes that little girl next door again”.
Never stop looking at the world a little differently, trust me it will pay off. Soon you’ll be an art school doing freelance work for non-profits and filling your journal with the ideas that you come up with while day dreaming. You will also have mastered the art of mashed potato glue and bending the rules.
