Five Pieces of Advice I’d Give to my High School Self

Six months from now I’ll celebrate my 32^nd birthday. They say that your 30s are the best years of your life, and so far I’d have to agree. And that’s saying something because my 20s were amazing to a point that I just can’t even describe. I’ve been blessed with a lot of happiness in my life, and I’m aware of it. And maybe that is why I have no fear of growing older. I enjoy it. I embrace it (I also hear all the time that I look 17 so that could be the actual truth of why aging hasn’t begun to bother me just yet). Growing older makes me wiser, it makes me more fun and it makes me more confident. I liked me in high school and I thought I knew it all. But as I grow up, I realize that all those things my parents said to me were actually true. But I’d say them to me in a different manner if I really could go back and tell my high school self all the things that I laugh about now, wish I knew back then. If I could go back in time and tell myself anything – this is what it would be.

College Counts so do it Quickly

I feel now like I wasted a lot of time with college. I could have taken more summer classes and been done a semester or two earlier, and I wish I had. It would have been nice to put that behind me as quickly as possible, so I’d tell that to my high school self.

These People Don’t Matter

I think of all the times I was sad when I argued with a friend or all the times I spent trying to keep up with people that I never see anymore. And I wish I would have realized back then that those people don’t really matter. I still speak to a few people I went to high school with, but at the end of the day they are just so different from me and where I am in my life.

It’s Not that Serious

How many times did something happen to me in high school that felt like the end of the world? I had no job, no career, no kids, no responsibilities except to my cheerleading squad and my grades. I was a good kid, but everything that did not go my way was horrible, and nothing was that serious. I wish I would have known that.

One Day Someone is Going to be Perfect

I had one serious boyfriend in high school before my senior year, and that boy broke my heart when he broke up with me. And I was devastated for two years. Well, not devastated, but pretty angry. I thought about him a lot and I wished we could meet again. And then I met my now-husband when I was in my senior year. It’s been 14 years and this man still gives me butterflies when he comes home in the evening and when he kisses me, and I wish I would have known that one day that would happen for me. It would have made more time for relaxing and less time for worrying.

Don’t be Two-Faced

There is nothing to gain saying things behind other people’s backs. It was silly and petty and ridiculous, and it was hurtful to others and to me. And I wish I would have known that then, that I didn’t have to talk about people to feel good about me or to join the conversation. It’s perfectly fine to dislike people, but it’s not all right to spread rumors and attack their character. I know that now, and it’s a great lesson.

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