This is your older self speaking.
Please don't be frightened. Everything is ok and is going to be ok. You don't realise but you are lovely just the way you are. Please don't try to be different. You feel everyone around you is confident and knows everything and you don't, but this is not true. Everyone is unique and people mature at their own pace. A bit of advice for the future, please don't stay in situations that make you unhappy, there are better times and better people out there. Life is about learning and I'm still learning lots and its great.
You will be happy, don't worry.
Jane (yourself at 45)
Dear Louisa
I’m going to jump straight in and hit you with the one truth that you will find hardest to believe right now…There will come a day when you will like yourself. I don’t just mean the way you pretend to now, on a surface level, by relying on a succession of successes at school and in your hobbies to make you feel valued, but one day, you will truly and honestly like and respect the person you are. That day will come when you finally manage to align your internal self (and by that I mean the person I know, you know you are in your head but yet have the courage or self-belief to reveal her) with your outer projection. Sadly, you will be forced into doing this by a heart-shattering event that you never dreamed you would have to contend with and which, at the time, will seem illogical, unfathomable and soul destroying. Now don’t hate me for this, but I will not be taking away the pain of this part of your life by advising you in such a way that you can then prevent it. Please believe me when I say that I feel so utterly cruel to allow you to experience such levels of despair, but the fact is that this event and the inward reflection that it incites is the making of you.
Dear Elizabeth
Or should I say Liz as you now insist on being called. I know you feel you have to fight everything your parents seem to have imposed on you, but do you have to be so strident about it? You are so angry inside because you feel powerless, resentful of what you see as the oppression of home, school and all the other institutional bodies which seem to control your life. And yes they do, but the way to free yourself is not by counter-reaction – that just comes across as childish and pointless, think about how you can really free yourself.
Dear Me
You've got a massive rollercoaster of a year ahead of you, some dark days and your going to make some monumentally stupid decisions. Hang in there and you'll come through it mainly unscathed. I could tell you not to marry that guy at 18 and not to throw your life away in a stoned haze. But that would mean you wouldn't be sitting here a fully independent (almost) 30 year old with a passion for life and a budding genius of a son. Don't worry about those pricks at school, you have no idea how gorgeous you are. Pay attention to the friends your about to make, they will be the most influential people you ever meet. They are going to stick by you when you need them most.
Dear Me
It is probably a bit pointless to write this, as you are the most stubborn person I know, and have never taken advice!
First of all, don’t marry the first man to propose to you, nor the second, and most certainly not the third (he will be incredibly boring!!)
First of all, don’t marry the first man to propose to you, nor the second, and most certainly not the third (he will be incredibly boring!!)
Dear Dee
Happy 16th birthday! I don't actually remember what happens today. What I do know is what you're feeling - you're dreading graduation day because you don't want to be parted from your high school friends and also because you believe in that line from Clarissa that goes: "maturity is a boring state of mind." Well it's not true. You'll have far more fun in college than you ever did in high school and after that, even more so. And the friends get better too. You won't even be in touch with those people you can't bear to lose now by 2010. I know this because that's where I am. I'm you, only 11 years older. And I'm completely different from you in so many ways. Better ways, so don't worry.
Dear Rhona
If you only you knew how lovely you are, how bright, how pretty, how capable you are, you wouldn’t need to worry so much! I know you have all those GCE exams looming and you haven’t a clue what career path you’ll take but there’s no rush. Just enjoy the moment, you have a wonderful life if you only realised it and the real pressure to succeed is coming from you, not your parents!
Dear Julia
I write this at the grand old age of 29 – this will sound old to you but, believe me, I still feel (or hope that I am) young. I’m still learning life’s lessons, but much of the soul-searching and dreaming of my teens has passed.
You are about to take you GCSEs and, despite not working as hard as you could (that holiday to India will be fabulous – you’ll never forget it, but you won’t get much work done), you do well. You are going to hit some hard times in the 6th form – you won’t be happy, you’ll be fighting a lot of demons and your work will suffer. You will feel hopeless and struggling, but you will come out of it and, once you start university, you will be happy again. Later in life you will look back at that dark time and realize that you were depressed. Even later in life, when you have had your two beautiful daughters, you will vow never to let your own children get into such a spiral without giving them a helping hand.
You are about to take you GCSEs and, despite not working as hard as you could (that holiday to India will be fabulous – you’ll never forget it, but you won’t get much work done), you do well. You are going to hit some hard times in the 6th form – you won’t be happy, you’ll be fighting a lot of demons and your work will suffer. You will feel hopeless and struggling, but you will come out of it and, once you start university, you will be happy again. Later in life you will look back at that dark time and realize that you were depressed. Even later in life, when you have had your two beautiful daughters, you will vow never to let your own children get into such a spiral without giving them a helping hand.
Dear Me,
On education:
The fact that you are receiving an SCGS education is something that will stay with you, and you know it. You will be filled with a sense of indignation and ridicule, when someday you drive past a banner that describes an SCGS education in these words, "From a face in the crowd to one the crowd faces", as if an SCGS were some mediocre institution that relishes in a rubbish MOE-conferred award called Value-adding. You will think to yourself "SCGS girls are an elite and we were never faces in the crowd to begin with, so what the fuck". And that very statement said aloud a decade later could actually get you hired by "Singapore's pre-eminent institution" that promises to "nurture future leaders", a job that will pay you well but yet one that you will scorn upon in disdain and throw it all away as a gift to yourself on your 26th birthday. Because just as how you are now at the age of 16, at 26, you still hold true to the belief that you could do better, you could do more. Don't make education your career. You are an impatient bitch, you hate inspirational things, do not attempt to inspire others.
The fact that you are receiving an SCGS education is something that will stay with you, and you know it. You will be filled with a sense of indignation and ridicule, when someday you drive past a banner that describes an SCGS education in these words, "From a face in the crowd to one the crowd faces", as if an SCGS were some mediocre institution that relishes in a rubbish MOE-conferred award called Value-adding. You will think to yourself "SCGS girls are an elite and we were never faces in the crowd to begin with, so what the fuck". And that very statement said aloud a decade later could actually get you hired by "Singapore's pre-eminent institution" that promises to "nurture future leaders", a job that will pay you well but yet one that you will scorn upon in disdain and throw it all away as a gift to yourself on your 26th birthday. Because just as how you are now at the age of 16, at 26, you still hold true to the belief that you could do better, you could do more. Don't make education your career. You are an impatient bitch, you hate inspirational things, do not attempt to inspire others.
Dear Me
You are 16, earning your own money, although most of it goes on your rent. This will hold you in good stead in future. Being sent away to school at ten and losing your father at the age of 14, the hardest two events you have had to cope with in your young life.
I could advise you not to marry at twenty; you would not have become the victim of domestic violence; then again you would not have had a beautiful daughter and much later two wonderful grandchildren. It's true what they say the things that don't kill you make you stronger and in your case that is exactly what happened, you ceased to be a victim.
I could advise you not to marry at twenty; you would not have become the victim of domestic violence; then again you would not have had a beautiful daughter and much later two wonderful grandchildren. It's true what they say the things that don't kill you make you stronger and in your case that is exactly what happened, you ceased to be a victim.
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