Letter to my Teenage Self

Now Ruby is in her early twenties and has discovered such joys as buying her own bras, salad, and debit cards, she’s had the chance to shudder at her teenage years and reflect on those oh-so-important issues at the time. To help you get through your wonder years, she’s offered some advice they don’t give you in girlie teenage mags. Is her age showing?

1. All the pretty girls that make you feel bad will be obese, smoking, single mothers by the time they hit 21.

2. You think the guys you know are immature? This is as mature as guys get so give up and join the nuns.

3. Hair can stand to be washed every day. It won’t burst into flames.

4. It’s okay to read things like Bliss magazine for the articles and not the posters of greasy chip boys.

5. Those hand-me-downs your mother forces you to wear will be the height of fashion in the future under the heading ‘VINTAGE’.

6. It’s okay not to be a stick.

7. Keep hold of that Minnie mouse jumper. You will keep kicking yourself over the fact you threw it out for being too ‘babyish’.

8. You DO NOT suit purple lipstick.

9. Teachers really don’t know everything but they hate it being pointed out. For some reason, they are picky like that.

10. Do not skip classes at school. This is a dumb idea that will one day bite you on the bottom and say ‘Hi, I am a bad idea. Let’s get a cup of tea and talk’.

11. At the same time, don’t torture yourself over grades. As you get older, it’s the experience that matters, not your knowledge of the 19th century steel industry.

12. Ignore your parents when it comes to your future. Only you know what you really want to do. If university/stage school/the circus is so great, they can do it.

13. There is no mystery behind alcohol. You drink it, behave like an electrocuted monkey, and wake up with your face in half a pizza. Glamorous it’s not.

14. You are not alone. Only deaf people and those in comas can fully enjoy the songs of boy bands.

15. Under no circumstance must you ever go underwear shopping with your mother. Mothers have no sense of humiliation when it comes to holding up a pair of granny pants in the middle of the shop and shouting to the assistant ‘Do you have these bigger? The elastic hasn’t much give’ in front of the bitchiest girls from school.

16. Anyone who says they have done this, that, and the other with a boy is lying unless they are into their first trimester.

17. Be who you want to be and learn how to throw a good right hook.

18. Start using moisturiser… NOW.

19. Ditto tweezers.