To Me, Five Years Ago,

Right now, you are 15, seated at the top of everything: captain of the tennis team, your soccer team’s MVP, straight A student, sister, niece, daughter and friend.

You are good and kind and a walking mess of chaos, confidence and charm. You rarely study for midterms and tests, but always find a way to babble on until you get the answer right and come out with an A.

You are resilient; 15 years has taught you to be brave and to stand tall, yet you are fragile and gentle. You cry, you scream, you shout. You are “normal,” or as close to normal as the word allows you to be when you’re a teen, yet you are terrified.

As the older, wiser, more worldly version of you, I wanted to tell you to keep making those mistakes. Stop tiptoeing the line between bad and good and let the line blur. Be bad, make the mistakes, test the limits. Stop worrying.

You are going to make mistakes. You are going to wear that hideous outfit and think you look cute.

You are going to drink too much. You are going to fail. And you are going to succeed.

You are 15. You don’t have the answers to everything. Hell, you don’t have the answers to anything. Just keep moving.

When you are 16, you are going to get hurt. You’re going to be out of soccer from two concussions – sitting you down for the entire season. You are going to quit your position and try something safer. In this moment, you’re learning your first valuable lesson — one that you’ll learn again and again and again, every day for as long as you live. You can quit, or you can work harder.

When you are 18 and graduated, you are going to quit sports – the one thing that has defined, inspired and sustained you since you were so young. When you leave for college, you are going to have your high school sweetheart break your heart. You'll make it out alive. But this break up is a blessing in disguise, it will lead you to your best friend. You will meet her and know immediately that she is going to be your partner in crime for the rest of your life.

When you’re 19, you’re going to fall for the wrong boy, hoping to mend your fragile heart. You will find out he has been cheating on you, and you will forgive him and take him back, always second-guessing yourself and your worth.

Here’s your biggest mistake. It’s going to take you years to learn. There is no one on this earth — no man, no woman, no employer — who has any right to determine how you should and shouldn’t feel about your body, your mind and your importance. But in this moment, you’ll be weak so many times. You’ll accept less than you deserve (a reality that makes me cringe again and again) and you’ll be OK with it (again, I am cringing).

I know you. You hide what hurts you very well. But please remember that just because you’re doing it now doesn’t mean you’ll do this forever. You won’t always accept less than what you deserve. The mistake you’ll make is believing that someone else has the ability to dictate your worth. The lesson you’ll learn in the long run is that they don’t.

Before your college sophomore year starts, you’ll get T-boned on the corner of Route 12 and Mollidor in your brand new Civic. You’ll hear your best friend scream and the car spins out into a ditch, only to find yourself out of breath and confused. You’ll call your mom, terrified, to tell her how badly you fucked up this time. You’ll be OK. And your mom, she’ll be OK.

Soon, you’ll be prepping to make the dive into the real world.

You will panic, you’ll realize that everything you thought you wanted to do was wrong and maybe business school isn't for you. But it is. You are good at what you do, and if you apply yourself to it, nothing can stop you.

Your dreams changed – and it terrifies you. You’ll think that your profession of choice was a mistake and that maybe, just maybe you can take an extra 16 credits, you can make it all work out.

You’ll study for 12 hours a day for two weeks in a row before that accounting exam, and you’ll still only get a 70 percent.

You’ll think you failed and that you’re wrong, that you’ve come this far and all of a sudden you don’t even know what you’re working toward anymore.

I know that at 15, the rest of your life is overwhelming and confusing. I know that you think that every decision you make today, you won’t be able to undo tomorrow.

I know you think that the stakes are too high, that so much as a sigh in the wrong direction will send you crumbling to your knees.

But I also know something that you don’t. You can't undo the decisions you make today and tomorrow, the stakes will always be high, but that’s no reason to tiptoe around them.

It will bring you to your knees.

But that was never a good enough reason to keep you from getting back up.

Love,

S.