>Letter to 16 year old me

>

November 2009
Sri Lanka

(No. You aren’t in Paris,
like you wanted to be)

To GF,

This is going to be a very mixed-up letter with bits and pieces flung in haphazardly (we were never one for order anyway), so bear with me. In case you’re curious, at 20, you’re not very different from 16, but oh gosh, you’ve learnt so much. You’ve started swearing a lot more by the way – a huge transition for someone who used to whisper the F-word and flinch, waiting for a bolt of lightning to hit you. 

The innumerable sweet 16 parties with DJ’s with acne and fake accents will tumble one after the other this year and the next 2 years will be one of the best years of your (albeit short) life. Make the most of them, kiddo. The friends you hang out with- the ones with whom you buried mementoes near a foggy bridge and pledged eternal friendships with, the ones you hung around at the canteen with – will be scattered next year – to different schools and continents even.

First, let’s get the pragmatic stuff out of the way.

You’ll make some drastic wardrobe choices. Those jeans which your dad bought for you from Singapore? The ones which you wear so proudly everywhere? Please.. Please burn them, bury them and for good measure plant a tree on top of them. You’ll thank me later.

Keep painting, or gradually you’ll lose your touch and your apples will start looking like cows and your bottles start resembling certain unmentionable body parts.

 

Yes, you are tall. And you always will be tall. Stop fighting it, stop hunching (you’ll be complaining of neck aches 4 years later) and folding yourself in four and embrace it. You’ll be amazed at the amount of confidence gained by simply holding your head in the air instead of slouching.

Instead of studying for your O/L’s 2 weeks before the exam, you might want to start a bit earlier. Procrastination will be the death of you. Yes, you’ll pass well, but the niggling feeling of what might have happened if you had done things differently will always be at the back of your mind. And trust me, nothing, nothing is worse than regret and a trickle of maybe’s and what if’s.

Try not to eat everything which remains stationary for more than 5 minutes. 

Pimples will fade away, but the scars will remain forever (ok, maybe just a few weeks).

Pick your A/L subjects carefully. You’ll fall in love with one subject and do really well, you’ll be at sea in another and you’ll gaily waltz through the third with a punch-drunk look on your face, to the utter despair of your teacher. No, I’m not telling you what to pick. Where’s the fun in that? You’ll know what to do when the time comes.

Stop fantasizing about Prince William. I think it’s safe to say that the two of you were never meant to be.

Loosen up. SMILE dammit! All that angst is not good for your health. What people don’t know (and what you don’t know yet either) is that beneath the staid, sober, hormone-ridden exterior is a kid dying to get out

Don’t be in a hurry to grow up. Believe it or not, you’ll spend the last years of your teens trying to grow young. (Anyone passing mount beach on Saturday night would’ve seen you along with a few likeminded friends hooting manically as your’ll scrambled on the slide and the see saw. Yeah, we’re cool like that.)

In the next few years you will have numerous escapades – both good and bad – and you will change in more ways than one.

I wish I could tell you that what they say about leaving school and stepping into the ‘real world’ isn’t true. I wish I could tell you that at 20, you won’t be as confused as you were, about the dark mystery that is ‘The Future’, when you were 16.

But I can’t.

We’re still learning kiddo. We’re still feeling our way warily in the dark, making mistakes and still fumbling around. And I have a feeling we always will be learning whether at 20 or 40.

But you know what? In-between the dire days and the slumps, there are the good days. Those ephemeral, quicksilver days where everything falls into place and, by god, they’re worth all of it – the uncertainty, confusion, the regret – everything. And it’s those transient moments of inexplicable joy which are worth living for.

Much love,

Me.

Tagged by Delilah a while back.

Passing the baton onto Sabby and Papare Boy.

About these ads