By Susannah Richardson

This Letter to My Younger Self is inspired by and based on the original series from https://darlingmagazine.org, which launched these letters to focus on wisdom and self-awareness through advice that we would go back and tell our younger selves. 

Dear 14-year-old me,

You’re in the thick of your adolescence, and pretty much everything seems to weigh on your shoulders much heavier than you expected. 

It scares you that you seem to be the only one confused and falling behind in Math class. Eating lunch with your friends seems like trying to win the lottery, and it’s a competition of who gets to sit next to the most-liked girl. After school, you love going to sports practice, but comparisons you’ve imagined in your head are starting to make quitting seem favorable. You’re both fortunate and happy that being at home with your family is an escape from the perils of middle school.

Right now, you have a habit of taking the people closest to you and those who care most about you for granted. Say thank you for the little and big things and remember not to limit gratitude to just people and their actions— Realizing thankfulness for things like baking cookies, your favorite song, or how flowers in your neighborhood look will bring you joy. 

I wish I could tell you that what people think of you has more to do with them than it does with you. You are capable of developing strong connections and authentic friendships. You’ll learn that most of the time, opinions are reflections of the person with the opinion, not of what the opinion is generated from. 

You shouldn’t feel like you need to mold yourself time and time again when you think someone doesn’t like what they see; you don’t always have to be someone’s cup of tea. Soon you’ll start to realize that there are actually a lot of people around you who want you to feel comfortable acting in ways and doing what makes you feel like your best self. 

One thing that I know for sure is that when you allow yourself to unleash who you really are, you’ll feel more fulfilled and confident in yourself than ever before. It’s okay and completely normal if your identity shifts as your life goes on; you don’t have to choose one single thing to be when you’re exploring all the exciting possibilities out there for you. When exploring these possibilities, stay true to what you want and remember that your big decisions are yours to make. Someone else’s opinions and influences will not matter in the long run. Your authenticity will inspire others and permit them to unleash their own authentic version of themselves. 

I’ll leave you with this quote by Glennon Doyle, the author of Untamed, whose words will soon become like anchors for you. 

“I am a human being, meant to be in perpetual becoming. If I am living bravely, my entire life will become a million deaths and rebirths.”