Your life is so different now. I bet even if I could tell you in person just how different it is, you would never believe me.

If there is one piece of advice I could give you, it would be to be yourself and to live with confidence. Life is far too short to be so hard on yourself. School is important, grades are important, but life is far more complicated than you realize. Don’t judge people so harshly for their mistakes or what you perceive as being superficial. You may not have partied or done anything remotely close to wrong in high school, but we all have to learn eventually. You’ll soon realize just how easy it is to make mistakes that you never thought you would.

I wish you wouldn’t worry so much about how many friends you have or how popular you are or who’s dating who. None of that matters as much as you think it does and eventually, you will see what really matters the most in life.

Be yourself because people adore you for it and you’re so funny. I wish you had realized that sooner. High school is just a blimp in your journey and the world has so much more to offer you. You’ll see who your real friends are and you’ll learn so much about yourself and you’ll realize how you were holding yourself back from letting people experience the real you. You’re an amazing girl and people do love you. You just have to love yourself. It took me a long time to realize how to do that, but I know that you’re capable of it and so much more.

You’re going to experience so many highs and lows and it is definitely going to be difficult. Sometimes you’re just going to want to quit and give up on everything you want in life, but you won’t. You won’t because you’re stronger than you realize and every struggle you face in life is a stepping-stone to learning a lesson that will help you grow as a person.

That boy who didn’t love you when you wanted him to doesn’t really matter in the long run and his life is nowhere near anything like yours. You weren’t meant for each other. Sometimes the one thing you want the most is the one thing you’re not meant to have.

You see the world and all of its elements through a very tiny microscope. You’ll soon see that that microscope is so much wider than you could have ever imagined. Life isn’t black and white. There are so many shades of gray and even though that has its negatives, it will be a life lesson in the end.

I love you so much and I know that you are going to be just fine. Life has so much to offer you and although I wish you would’ve been nicer to yourself in high school and experienced more, you more than makeup for it in college. It’ll be hard, but it’ll be worth it. You are the person you are now because of what you are going to go through. Be brave and be patient. You’re stronger than you know.