If I had the opportunity to go back in time and tell my ten-year-old self things I knew now, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I’d want to tell her everything, but most importantly, I’d want to thank ten-year-old me for shaping me into who I am today. Thank her for not caring about how much she weighed, what people thought about the way she dressed and always being the girl to laugh the loudest and the longest.
Tell her that every girl is going to hate or be embarrassed by something, or many things, from her childhood. A bad yearbook photo, embarrassing home movie, cutting your own bangs (guilty, many times), having a crush on the kid who eats glue – the list could go on forever.
The best part of the list? In the end, nobody is going to care. So go on, wear your hair in the high ponytail in the front of your head like a unicorn (even though your sister told you not to), sit with different kids at lunch every day and best of all, EAT WHATEVER THE HECK YOU WANT! Don’t care how you look in a bathing suit, wear the same headband for a month, because you know you look good! However, I don’t recommend shaving your eyebrow—you’re a hairy girl, deal with it. Only having one eye brow all summer isn’t the best look.
Try your best. I know you’ll never like math, but you have to try. There’s only so little of your life where mommy and daddy can tell you what to do, and you have to listen. Trust me, you’ll miss them telling you what to do. School is important, and unfortunately, it is going to get harder than long division and knowing the states.
Experiment with life. Go outside, explore and heck, play in some dirt! Use your imagination, be whoever you want to be, and then tomorrow, be somebody completely different!
Write things down. Maybe not to the extent of having a diary filled with quotes of everything your crush said to you that day because you will find it in eighth grade, and it WILL make you feel awkward in school for about a week. But writing is one of the most important things you can do to keep memories and remember what made you so happy on certain days. That’s what’s so great about it. You’ll have journals full of different thoughts, all different rankings on the embarrassment scale—but it’s crazy the amount of things you’ll remember by writing them down. Crazy enough that you could have it forever.
You’re going to find out a lot about life this year; more so about how quickly life can be taken away. Part of growing up is learning how to deal with the death of someone you love. It’ll be bad for a couple of months, but it will eventually get better. It will teach you how to be strong when you need to be, that it’s okay to cry and most importantly, to keep the people you love close. Never let someone forget you love them.
Listen to dad when he coaches you! Don’t just giggle at him and give him a sarcastic thumbs up. He may talk a lot, but listen to the man—he knows what he’s talking about. Cherish the weekends spent at the soccer fields and basketball courts. Try not to just think about the snack at the end of the game, even though everyone knows that’s the best part. Being on a team is going to be one of the best parts of your childhood.
I guess all I’m trying to say is never change. Don’t get into drama, stay silly and be yourself. The rest of your life people are going to try to get you to be something you aren’t. So while you can, before you have any responsibilities, just be happy. Like mom says “never lose your laugh.”