Belated Birthday Letters to Myself

(Idea blatantly stolen from The Cheeky Lotus, Aug 8, 2007)

"The School Years Edition"

Dear Kindergarten Self: Just accept the nap and quit fighting it. Believe it or not, when you grow up, you would like nothing more than for some nice lady to give you milk, a cookie, and then a soft mat to sleep on for a few hours every afternoon.

Dear Second Grade Self: I realize you call it a “game”, but stop chasing the boys at recess. And especially, stop kicking them in the shins when you catch them. Because one of these days a boy named Brian Archer is going to turn around and kick you back and guess what? That shit hurts. So just stop it already. And remember, the retainer is your friend.

Dear Fifth Grade Self: You are going to take part in a spelling bee this year, and you are going to mess up the word “lace”. Not only will you be annoyed with yourself, and embarrassed, but this will be the starting point for a life-long fear of public speaking, which will put a rather large crimp in your karaoke fantasies. Learn how to spell lace. Get over your paranoid, resulting phobia of microphones.

Dear Seventh Grade Self: Dear Lord you are embarrassing. And extremely pathetic. Is there any boy within a hundred-mile radius that you do NOT have a crush on? Get a grip, and put your nose back in a book. Also, you’re single-handedly destroying the ozone with all the hairspray you’re using to maintain your perfect feathered hairdo.

Dear Eighth Grade Self: This is the year you start putting on weight, after that disastrous church camp experience when you came home certain you had been starved all week. Get a handle on it NOW otherwise you will fight this, and despise it, for the next forty years. Also, your parents paid a lot of money for that French horn; take better care of it.

Dear Ninth Grade Self: Stop chasing boys. Seriously, the way you act makes me cringe. Dork.

Dear Tenth Grade Self: Well, what do you know, you actually caught one. Appreciate him, because he is a good guy and will set the bar very, very high for every relationship that follows. But lose the poodle perm.

Dear Twelfth Grade Self: Don’t be in such a hurry to grow up. That full-time after-school job you JUST HAVE TO HAVE will cut into a lot of your senior activities. The minimum wage you are earning now will not be worth the sacrifice. Slow down. Enjoy it. All those obnoxious people who keep telling you this is the best time of your life? Well, they might not be **exactly** right, but they have a point. You are running as fast as you can toward adulthood and you will regret it later.

Dear College Freshman Self: Hello, weren’t you listening? You are going down in academic flames in school because you’re so busy driving back and forth to your job, and working full-time, because you need the money, to make your car payment, because you have to have a car, to get to and from work. This is what adults mean by “vicious circle” and if you don’t snap out of it, you’ll wind up quitting after your freshman year. And believe me, it will be one of the biggest regrets of your life. Your parents paid a lot of money for you to live in that dorm, so make some friends and enjoy it.