As today is my birthday, I thought I would write a FF to myself - ten things to the myself of ten years ago, the 21 year old me. I wrote and deleted quite a few, and ended up with this… Feel free to add something you would advise your own self ten years ago..!

1. Your actions and the things you say and do affect people. You won’t realise this for another while. Prepare to start looking outward.

2. You are in full control of your mind and all the thoughts you have - which also makes you responsible, absolutely and completely, for the things you are doing right now. Regardless of history or circumstance. You are making that choice at this moment, and you have to accept responsibility for that.

3. Accept what you deserve. Don’t accept what is not right for you, or will hold you back, or change the way you behave. This all comes back to point 2.

4. Yes, perhaps you really haven’t a clue who you are as a person, whether you’re likeable or not, talented or not, meant for success or not. You will come to realise that worrying about that is redundant. Just get out there and start living. Sitting in a room in your mind is not living.

5. Not ‘having a clue’ allows you to do some ridiculously irresponsible things. In time, you’ll look back and think - oh wasn’t I wild! Didn’t I live! Then you’ll realise, no, that was just being lost. Living is when you find yourself amongst the thoughts and realise that the reality of ‘living’ is understanding who you are, accepting that, and taking yourself off on an adventure that doesn’t hurt people or yourself….

6. In time, you’ll eventually learn when to leave a relationship that just isn’t that good. This will come when you understand point 3.

7. You will also have to learn when to stay in a relationship that really is that good.

8. Stop being afraid of things. Stop being so sure of other things. Stop thinking so much. Be a little more thoughtful. Try to be a nice person, but don’t change too much. Accept who you are at your core, accept that you will get in trouble sometimes. Know who your friends are - and be okay with being alone. Be independent. Don’t be too independent. Stop taking bad advice. Learn to take your own advice. Know when that advice is bad too. Oh, and stand up for yourself. Placating is not debating. Also know when to back off a bit.

9. Travel. It’ll help you work through all the nonsense of point 8.

10. One day, ten years from now, you will write ten points to the you of right now. Take my advice. Tell the you of ten years time, writing the list, that as much as she would like to think that she’s changed so much from being you - that really she needed to write this for herself. She’ll know what you mean.

xBlanaid

Wallowing - staring at the palms of your hands which rest on your crossed knees, lost in the thoughts about yourself that you’re sure are just extensions of someone else’s thoughts about you. Sitting in a kind of oddly expected shock that you’re not perfect. Of course, you knew that, you know that you’re not perfect, no one is harder on you than you…Yet it’s still a shock when you think that someone else has figured it out and doesn’t like a part of you and the way you are… Peculiar isn’t it. It’s like you can’t win. Well, you can’t if you sit and stare at your hands and think about it so much that all the other people stop mattering, or even existing, in this world of upturned hands and wallow and thoughts. You remove yourself from everyone, even the ones who like all the parts of you.

No one is perfect. You know that. You know that but you need to hear it and apply it and accept it and understand that it is okay to be imperfect.  Just be here and be imperfect and have fun - that’s all anyone who cares about you wants from/for you.

xBlanaid

Images via designquixotic on pinterest