High School and Plastic Rats
A LETTER TO MY 15 YEAR OLD SELF
This blog post is dedicated to all the girls and boys that still feel like their world makes no sense. Like they aren’t smart enough or no one thinks they are cute. Like their physical appearance defines them or they wish they didn’t have braces or a weird laugh.
Dear Helen,
You are starting high school with braces. Sorry to break the news to you but you will spend the next 3 years day dreaming about the instant glow up you’ll receive once those metal cages are taken off your teeth. High school will run pretty smoothly for you. Friend groups will come and go but a few friends will stick it out and become those life long friends you can go weeks with out talking to and then call in the middle of the night sobbing about nothing and everything. You will kind of luck out that you went to high school before this new trend of 16 year olds looking like 25 year olds hit. You will go to mixers, CO-ED mixers I may add, where none of the boys will dance with you, which breaks your heart for a few minutes but then you start hitting the dougie in the middle of the dance circle and you’re OK again. You will have crushes, and lots of them. You will Snapchat cute boys on your IPod touch at night until your dad rudely turns off the WiFi. You will see your friends get boys attention or even worse… a boyfriend. You will think a boy likes you until he says he likes your best friend (this may be a continued theme in your life but don’t worry, you dodge a few bullets). There will be themed basketball games, football on Friday nights and what seem like Project X level parties on Saturdays. Because obviously 15 year olds throw the best parties in their parents’ basement. You don’t get asked to any school dances or first dates. But you get a boyfriend, you FINALLY get asked to Prom, you start to develop your own style and you laugh a lot. However, with all of the magical moments there will be hard ones. You will be insecure and the thoughts that you will never be pretty or cool enough start to flood in. I would never trade these hard moments for anything. They made me realize that my self worth should not be based off what other people are doing around me. We all have our own shit going on so let's focus on ourselves.
So here are 10 lessons I think would help my 15 year old self:
Fake it til you make it. If you feel insecure about something, embrace it and act like you don’t care because you will quickly realize LITERALLY NO ONE CARES. And if they do, that is a THEM problem. Trends fade quickly but loving yourself never goes out of style ;) .
If you want to show up in a costume or wig to an event, do it.
You will never look like Kendall Jenner and if you somehow woke up one day looking like her, you would probably still find something to not like about yourself so just love yourself!
You actually are smart and can get good grades (except math but don’t worry you’ll figure that one out).
IF A BOY LIKES YOU… YOU WILL KNOW. IF YOU HAVE TO SNAP CHAT OR TEXT HIM 20 TIMES IN A DAY BEFORE HE EVER RESPONDS…. MOVE ON.
If you need more help in this subject watch the movie, “He’s just not that into you” and thank me later.
Just go up and talk to people. Ask them about themselves and really listen.
Don’t ever back away from stating your opinion because you are afraid of sounding dumb or abrasive.
If you have a crush on a boy (that’s tragic but) make a move and if it isn’t reciprocated DO NOT cry in your bed all night. Take a shower, put on your cute outfit and go hang out with your friends. Then you won’t even notice he responded 2 hours ago.
Don’t worry too much about what others think. They most likely aren’t thinking about you. I mean really I am not that full of myself but I swear I think about myself 98% of the time.
If you can’t stop thinking about doing something like dying your hair pink but you’re scared to do it because someone told you it would look bad- do it. Not to spite them but because it is your hair and having natural colored hair is an idiotic social construct anyway.
And a little bonus note to my girlies in college:
This is the time in your life where you can be completely selfish. If you want to stay up until 2:00 am partying on a Monday, do it and learn from that awful hangover. If you want to break up with your long distance boyfriend after 3 years and be by on your own, do it- embrace the sadness and discover yourself. If you want to be a bad ass student athlete and go to bed at 8:00 pm on a Friday so you’re fresh for Saturday practice, DO IT. The second you start showing up for yourself everyone around you will notice. You will start glowing from the inside out and good things will begin to happen. If you want to wear your cute new jeans but everyone else is wearing leggings, wear them! If you want to wear your MooMoo you bought at Walmart out to a party, DO IT. Then you can go straight to bed afterwards, hassle free! If you want to blast your sad Spotify playlist through your headphones and cry about a minuscule problem- do it. But not for long because it’s just not that deep, sis.
Here is a little story about being yourself:
I brought two large plastic Halloween rats to my college house last year (yes plastic rats). At first my roommates were like, “How did we end up with the freak?”. But we began to prank each other with the rats and even gave them nicknames. Cappie, short for Copernicus, and Cappie’s Cousin became staple characters in our house. We have had so many laughs and probably even cries with these plastic rats. We dance with them and scare our guests when they discover there’s two of them. These rats are kind of a metaphor for me deciding to be myself. What I am trying to say is: BRING OUT YOUR PLASTIC RATS. CELEBRATE THEM. SHOW THEM OFF. EVERYONE PROBABLY WANTS TO BRING OUT THEIR PLASTIC RATS TOO! A world without plastic rats is a world I would not want to live in.
Toodles,
Helen
