Write A Letter To Your Sixteen-Year-Old Self

A picture of sixteen-year-old me before the Homecoming  dance my senior year.

I was struggling for a blog topic today. I was searching through my word documents and came across one I started in 2014 on a whim. I decided to open it and discovered a few writing prompts that I did just to kick start some writing inspiration. They were mostly unfinished and pretty terrible, but I quite like this one. I wrote it almost two years ago, before my big personality (or rather, expression of this personality I had in me the whole time) change of fall 2014. It's crazy how things change in a year!

 11. Write a letter to your sixteen-year-old self.

February 24, 2014

            Dear Francesca, circa age 16,

           

            Everything that you are going through is not as big as it seems. Worrying about your future and college is not going to do you any good. It is okay to think about it, but don’t be afraid of what has yet to come. Things may surprise you.

            Things that you thought you knew are not true. It is not true that no boy ever loved you. It is also not true that you need to melt into the palm of any boy who tells you that he does, no matter how desperate you yearn for love. It is better to wait. So don’t dwell on that too much, either. One day you will learn to love yourself, and in return, that will allow other people to love you as well.

            Some day, you are going to figure out exactly what you want to do with your life, but you won’t know how to get there. You are going to read a lot of magazines and blogs, you are going to write stories about angst and love and things you never imagined. You are going to create fictional worlds that you want to live in some days. You are going to write stories that touch people’s lives, and it’s going to make you feel okay again.

            Some day you are going to find happiness, not in another person, but in yourself.

            Sincerely,

            Francesca Pauline Gariano <3