Dear 13 year old me…

Hi 13 – year old Alina,

how are you ? how is school? I know it probably doesn’t make sense to ask this as I already know exacly what you’re doing, what you’re feeling and what you’re worrying about. So I’m here to share the wisdom with you I gained in those 10 years we’re apart.

First of all: It gets better. I’m talking about everything from your acne, your hairstyle, your clothing style (would you please look in a mirror !!), to your mum, your friendships and your self- hatred. Please don’t be surprised if it gets worse first though, you have a tough couple of years in front of you. But don’t worry you’ll get through this. You’ll for example be surprised that I don’t talk to A. anymore and it is the healthiest decision I have made my whole life. I know you said friends forever but the pain she’s causing you already gets worse and I wish I had started standing up against her much sooner and protected us from the damage she has done to your soul. I found other people who treat me good and feel like chocolate for the soul and they’re worth everything. You will find out that you in fact don’t need her and learn to never beg people to stay in your life again. But on to happier things.

I finished school and guess what ? I could have gone to the uni you wanted to go, but didn’t. I still studied media, so everything is still kind of going according to your plan. Yes, I remember the letter you wrote for me in class outlining your career goals. I still think about them every time I need to make any decision about my future and I still believe that your dreams are valid. In fact I never stopped wanting those things. I think a lot about the what ifs. What if I had been brave enough to go to acting school? The thing I want to say is that your dreams are not stupid. You might not decide to live them but they’re still part of who you are.

So don’t worry about being cool or trying to impress people, by hiding who you are or not caring about anything. In real life not caring about anythimg doesn’t make you cool, it makes you lonely. It’s passion that makes you cool and individual. Also, you haven’t talked to people from school since you left and also stopped thinking about them. So I wish you would stop measuring your self-worth by how popular you are.

I’m sorry if you’re disappointed to see what I have become, because you probably thought you’d be super successful and have an amazing boyfriend. I don’t have any of these things and that is okay. I’m still young and there’s a lot of time to figure this out.

Hang in there.

See you in 10 years.

Love,

Alina

 

 

Dear 34-Year-Old me – Katie

Dear 34- year-old-me,

Last week I wrote to my 14-year-old me to kind of look back at the past 10 years and to see how my life has changed and how my perception and understanding has changed. So I figured I would look at the next 10 years to you know kinda think about my hopes and dreams for the future.

Well, considering that I am currently looking at jobs and have severe anxiety around the issue, I am hoping that this worked out and that you are in a job that you like and that lets you do something that you like. Tell me, which application worked out in the end?  I am really just hoping we do something that we are passionate about and are not stuck in a job that we hate.
I hope you travelled a bit more. Yes, I like what we did so far and we have made it to some cool place, but we have been very focused on that job thing and all of the travelling we have done has been to achieve that kind of goal. Like we have not been on a holiday since 2013. Like what even is that. But maybe our job lets us travel a bit too that would be cool.

However, seeing how it is currently going I almost don’t expect you to have it all figured out because who really has it all figured out? I mean look at our parents, they are still trying to figure it all out. But I do hope that you are more settled than I am now. Well yes, to an extend that comes with the job, but also with your living arrangements because this moving every year thing ain’t fun. I hope you have a nice place, I am not expecting you to own it because that probably won’t be a thing. I hope it is nice though. And maybe we are lucky enough to live close to the girls. Maybe we finally managed to all live in proximity to each other. I hope you still have your obsession with fairy lights and you have pictures of people you care about around, just maybe in frames now instead of just stuck on a wall with blu tack. I hope you still appreciate all the moments on the pictures because they show things you can be proud of, even if you don’t talk to all the people in the pictures half as much as you would like to. This is a silly thing but I hope you have a nice armchair and plenty of bookshelves and actually take your time to sit in that armchair with a book and a blanket on weekends and nights to relax because that is something I am looking forward to and really want you to do.

I am hoping you are still close with people you love and you are not giving up on them like I have done before. Stick around the people that make you a better person and that make you feel good about yourself. Having friends and being close to them is so important, because you have seen what happened after your parents split. I am just going to put it out here now, if a certain group of friends and you are not as close anymore as we are now, I will be very, very mad with you!

I hope you fell in love. I hope you actually trusted someone enough to get to know you enough to build a nice and solid relationship on it. Going by how much I don’t want it to happen. That person is probably German, but hey everyone has their flaws right. On the Brightside that would mean that he could raise your children in German and you could be the one to teach them English to raise them bilingual and won’t have to be the one speaking in German to them. On that topic, I am kind of hoping you have one child already. Right now, I am hoping to have multiple children and to adopt at least one. I am hoping you are being a good mother and are a good example for your children. I am hoping you are making it work with your partner and you are having family time together. I am also hoping you finally got a dog and get to experience having a pet for the first time in your life.

I am hoping you remain confident and gain a bit of fearlessness and move out of your comfort-zone a little more than I am doing right now. I am hoping you are still kind and friendly and try to make people feel safe and happy to talk to you. I am hoping you are still open-minded and care a lot about others because it is a driving force behind a lot of your motivation. I am hoping you are still acknowledging your ambition and I am hoping you are working towards satisfying that because ambition is definitely not a bad thing! I am hoping you still love music and gigs and take your time to enjoy those. Ngl, I am kind of hoping you are now mainly using lush products, which is a silly thing to say but I am honestly buzzing for the moment I can do that.

 

I am hoping you are still thinking about doing a PhD at some point because while you are currently very fed up with academics, you do like it and you have so many ideas for it that it would be amazing.
I am kind of hoping you will have finished writing a book. Again you have so many ideas and you start stories but you never finish them. You don’t need to do anything with that book but at least finish writing it, however bad it is.

Most of all, I am hoping that you are happy with where you are at with life at the moment. I am hoping you are healthy and have healthy relationships and that you are working for something that makes you happy and proud.

I love you and cannot wait to see who and how we are when I turn  34.

Katie

Dear 14 year- old me

Dear 14 year-old-me,

Hi, how are you doing? I have been procrastinating a lot today and have watched a lot of interviews of celebrities, you probably haven’t even heard of. But one question that they always get is what would you tell your teenage self? What would you do differently growing up?
The second question is easier to answer. It is not that I don’t have any regrets about my childhood or teenage years, I think that would be very unusual if I don’t. Like I wish I would have been braver at times, I wish I would have trusted people more, I wish I would have been more confident. But all the things that happened to me and the way they happened to me lead me to where I am today and I am pretty happy with where I am.
Do I think you would be happy with where I am at now? Probably with most things and with some things you would be like :”What the hell, Katrin?”
You would be appalled by my excitement over business clothes and the wish to work in an office where I have to wear them. Considering you were trying to work out what you want to do based on to which profession you could wear jeans every day. I now own and wear dresses and feel good wearing them. I don’t feel like I am out of place or awkward in them.
You would be upset to know that I stopped playing badminton. You love it. It is your life because you feel at home there. Because you feel like you are worth something and like people around you support you. Trust me, when I stopped it didn’t feel like that for me anymore. There was pressure and drama. However, I didn’t need badminton anymore for the reasons you need it. I can gladly say I have friends, another sport and my classes where I feel safe and at home and accepted.
You would probably be confused by me living and loving living in the UK. Speaking English all day. No more French, though I want to re-learn it. And I actually see the appeal of the UK now. Even though you never really did.

You would be weirded out by my hair being really long and being curly. The frizz that you have now will turn into proper curls and go massive and then gradually decline again. But people seem to like it and I finally learned how to operate straighteners properly and can do a decent job with that too. Oh and I also wear makeup now and like it. I know, I know we always thought it was not necessary and didn’t know how to do it, but I am actually okay at it now and have fun putting it on.
Also back to the job thing. Well, do you remember when we first started to get the magazine geolino and were trying to figure out how to get a job that was helping kids like that. Well, my dear, this is what I am currently applying for. Who would have thought, right? But I think this is something you would actually be pretty happy with.
You’d probably disappointed by seeing that I am very, very far from having it all figured out although according to you I am probably ancient. But it is okay. We are getting there. Slowly. But looking around me and people my age, most of us are still trying to figure it all out and that is more than okay.

So what advice can I give you for the future. Well, hang in there. School will be over and you will get the friendships you wanted but didn’t really have. You will very soon have a fantastic year in Canada where you will do a lot of growing up and learning about yourself. Times will be tough sometimes and you will feel awful about everything in your life, but at that point you will have the right people to lean on when you need it the most. Try to learn to trust people and to be open. You don’t have to do it all alone. Just because you are needing help to get through something, it doesn’t mean you are weak. Telling people about things going on at home and letting go of the illusion that you have a great family life, does not take away from you as a person, it just allows you to share the burden and to make life a little easier for yourself. Stick to your reading because it is a great escape from everything around you. Enjoy music as much as you do, though you probably could improve your music taste a little. You got some good stuff going on there, focus on that, thanks. Enjoy being in school and being a teen as much as you can and try not to put pressure on yourself to achieve things or “milestones” of a teenager because you will realise that there aren’t actually those kind of “milestones” and everything happens when it is supposed to happen. You will be okay. Don’t listen to other people judging you or trying to give you their opinion on how you should be because you are more than okay.
Try something new every once in a while and try to let go. There is nothing wrong with failure, it is much worse to not try at all.
I love you,

Katie