a letter to my teenage self

outgrowing the person you used to be

i have been stuck in my teenage self for quite long after my teenage years. cringing at the word puberty long after i should have outgrown it. believing i was no good at languages because my school grades said so. believing i had to be skinny to be happy or lovable. believing that more money would solve all my problems.

“well, my dear teenage me, let me tell you, puberty was a cringy thing to go through, but we made it through to the other side. we’re safe now. and believe it or not these days you make your money by writing books, teaching english of all subjects. you will be happy to hear that we did in fact manage to get skinny, but it didn’t make us happy, it made us hungry. we also managed to make pretty good money in our early 20ties and that made us a little happy, but what it really did was leave us stressed and close to burn out. sometimes money just isn’t worth its cost.

in case there will be time travel in our future and you will be able to read this, i compiled a little list of things that actually make us happy:

• long walks in nature

• slow mornings

• big mugs filled with tea or coffee with oatmilk

• sunshine

• books

• spending time with friends or family

• gardening

• writing

• good food

• playing the piano

• pilates

• picnics

• the smell of lilacs and lavender

as you can see, none of the things we love cost a lot of money and none of the things we love require you to starve - the latter won’t end well for you anyway my dearest, you will only end up going from one extreme into the other. but that’s okay, i think we had to go through this to know that people still love us even if we went from skinny to overweight in a heartbeat.

i am grateful for the lessons we learned, but i am also grateful to know that i have finally outgrown our silly ideas.

i am not skinny, far from it, and yet i love my life. i am even coming to love my body.

i am no longer rich if we define rich by the amount of money i have, but i am rich. in the freedom to choose when and where i work. in my creative pursuits. in the people that surround me. in the life i live.

thank you for going through the cringy bit for us and thank you for letting me grow up. I love you.”

me at 17

me yesterday

to growing up and letting go

see you soon

-kim