A letter to a young teenager 🫩

Dear Teenager

I’m writing to you from a place you couldn’t possibly imagine and at an age you’d think impossibly old. I have the benefit of hindsight and would love to take your hand and tell you not to be so hard on yourself. You have no idea how much life is waiting out there for you and how many versions of yourself you’ll have to go through before you reach the position I’m in now.

But there are two things I wish I could give you; a glimpse of the woman you’ll become and the knowledge that you will get there in your own time. You’re going to be alright! You’re going to survive these difficult teenage years although I realise this won’t seem remotely possible right now!

I see you sitting on the bed in your sunny bedroom worrying about something, which, in the great scheme of things, will turn out to be insignificant. But not right now! Right now it feels as if the world is against you and you are completely alone.

You go to an all girls school where you are surrounded by other girls who seem infinitely more confident, prettier and definitely more interesting than you. Not only are you painfully shy, have a stammer and have uncontrollably curly hair but you have spots that seem to have declared war on your face! All these awful ‘disabilities’ have made you realise that no boy will ever find you attractive!

And there is this one boy who you are profoundly, hopelessly and spectacularly in love with! This really saddens me. Even though I’ve been around a bit I can still feel your angst. You are always thinking about him, analysing every word he says and every glance he gives in your direction as if you’re gathering evidence for a court case! You’re planning your future together. You fantasise about dancing closely with him, holding his hand and that first glorious, rapturous kiss!

Stop!

There are five girls to every boy in your town. He has first choice of all the popular beauties. You are convinced that he is the most wonderful, handsome boy who has ever walked the earth. I have news for you! He isn’t! Looks are skin deep! I know because I had one date with him and wondered what on earth anyone could ever see in him! I bet you wouldn’t believe me. What do adults know?

But one day you’ll discover that this boy and all the others are not the highly sophisticated breed of humans you imagine them to be. Most teenage boys are too busy wondering whether their own hair looks ridiculous, whether their trousers are the correct length and if they can get through one day without saying or doing something spectacularly stupid in front of girls, you included. They’re as insecure as you are!

You’re carrying around a judgemental committee in your head. Trust me, this committee genuinely doesn’t know what it’s talking about! It’s creating all these rules about how you should look, what you should wear and how you are expected to behave. When you are already so shy and self conscious these rules feel like you’re in a prison cell preventing you from getting out there to enjoy life, your family and your friends. You are constantly questioning what people think, what they say and why they’ve said it. Have you done the wrong thing? Have you embarrassed yourself again? Have they noticed your spots, your bad hair day, will anyone ever be able to fall in love with you?

Now listen to me! You do grow up and become braver. You’ll discover that confidence isn’t something you’re born with but something life gradually gives you. You are going to get a good job, travel, experience things you could never imagine possible! And, most importantly, you will fall in love and rather wonderfully, someone will fall in love with you! You’ll have two beautiful children who will grow into kind, loving adults. You will build a life that is fuller and happier than you could ever have dreamt possible.

Life isn’t a fairy tale and I’m not going to insult you and pretend it is. There will be disappointments and heartbreak. There will be moments when you’ll wonder if you are strong enough. You are! One day you will stop caring quite so much, but not completely, because that’s just the kind of person you are. You’ll say what you think and not let your stammer get you down or define you.

You’re young and understandably frightened as you have absolutely no idea what lies waiting for you. You nurture your fears, your insecurities and are wasting time worrying about things that will never happened.

But, alas, you will never know any of this. You will never receive the comfort these words could have given you because I can only write this letter many years later. You had no crystal ball, no fortune teller whispering in your ear. You simply had to take that brave step into the unknown, like all young teenagers do.

You won’t know which paths will lead to heartache or which ones to happiness but that is how it is meant to be. You have to live life, not watch it unfold from a safe distance. Your future isn’t shared with you or written for you. You’ve have to write it yourself. You’ll be shaped by all the good times, the heartbreak and all your adventures, the biggest being leaving South Africa and moving to England.

And that is how the frightened young girl who lived, loved, stumbled, laughed, endured and discovered so many wonderful things along life’s way, became the woman sitting writing this letter to you today.