Dear Sixteen-Year-Old-Me.

Monday 21 April 2014





It’s 2014. I’m twenty-six years of age {yikes!} which isn’t old of course but certainly older than what I could ever have dreamt ahead to in my childhood. I’m not lying when I say that there are a lot of things that have (or haven’t!) eventuated by my mid-twenties that I assumed would be under my belt by now. Changing times and all that. Still, it can be very hard to quell the social expectation of where you should be at any one time in your life. Spesh when there are so many opportunities for comparison (family, friends, peers, fiction!). Regardless, the Lyn of 2004 is almost unrecognizable to the Lyn of 2014 who sits here jibber-jabbering about herself. Ten years is a long time. Actually, strangely, it feels like an eternity.

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Dear Lyn@16,

This feels weird. Like, hearing a recording of your voice {do I really sound like a giggling chipmunk} weird, not so much the underpants-on-your-head-and-pencils-stuck-up-your-noise-a la-Blackadder weird. Such a great start to this little nostalgic hi-ho. Mostly I guess this feels weird because sixteen-year-old Lyn and current Lyn are verrrry different people.

It’s ’04. You’re still plugging away at school, getting to the business end of that whole thirteen-years-of-compulsory-education thing. You live with your folks (who are fab), your womb buddy is still at home with you (no broken window incidents for ages by this stage, of course!) and the fam is driving around in the little red bubble. You’ve got your interests which, similarly to now, anchor predominantly around trying to do well at stuff, music and Star Wars. This is the year you start working at Charcoal Chicken (and developing an unhealthy obsession with chicken salt), the year after your fairly-soul-destroying-first-and-last-AMEB-exam and the year before your final stint at Altona Secondary College. There will be some pretty big things coming, good and bad; new friendships starting and others being irrevocably damaged, scary adult-hood stuff on its way (voting, bills, choosing a career!) whether you’re ready or not, life-changing discovery and tragic loss. Actually, that last one, yeah, let’s just say having an extra ten years in the bank counts for nothing in that regard.

Anyway! One of the biggest things that will happen for you this year revolves around your musical sense of self, awareness and growth. Up to now you’ve been struggling to transform your absolute joy into accessible skill. Um, sure, you like playing music, you love hearing it and responding on a soulful level and you hope you can maybe someday soon share this with the next generation of budding musos… but it’s tough. You suck at it a lot of the time. There are loads of people better at it then you. Even so, Lyn@16, you hold on to that dream. You know what’s coming this year? Westgate. And two years after that? Melba. After that the awesomesauce muso stuff is endless. Westgate Concert Band will welcome you into the fold this year and you’ll walk into those library doors for rehearsal and think you’re only sticking around to satisfy VCE Music group formal stuff. You’ll be bewildered, socially awkward, terrified of everything around you… but that institution of groovy people and fab music will change your life. For the better. Seriously, you will never ever be the same.

As for other stuff, well, friends will come and go. Some will pop back in your adulthood and the reconnection will be a beautiful gift. There will be additions to your amazing family, as well as some departures… You will continue to strive, stumble, struggle but through it all you will grow and change. Every day. Your love life is pretty bleak at this stage and to be honest, that is mirrored today… but that elusive journey of self-discovery you’ve been promised happens when you leave school will actually freaking happen. Like a movie. You’ll meet so many new and wonderful people, have ground-breaking epiphanies, reach some dazzling highs and sink to depressing lows. You will stay on your nerdy little path and achieve what you wanted. You’ll be a music teacher. You’ll be passing on your love of this inconceivable art. You will be making a difference and bringing the happy. So, brave heart Lyn@16. Your world is about to fling you into an eventful decade of wonderment.

Yours in ten years, Lyn@26. Xxx

P.S. Oh, and try not to be so hard on yourself. You’ll have plenty of time for that later… but it really isn’t necessary. You are blessed and happy. Try not to forget it.
P.P.S Next year is Episode III year. You’ll think this is the last new Star Wars film you will get to see in the cinema but I can tell you there is more to come. And you may owe your Daddy-o an apology for doubting his mocking taunts about an Episode VII throughout your childhood.   
P.P.P.S. Invent the smartphone. And apps. And Facebook. That is all. 

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Gentle readers, give this a go. It's a nice way to reflect and look back. Be kind to yourself! 

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