Today's optional post topic is a letter to your younger self. So I decided to write a letter to my 17 year old self.
Dear 17 year old me,
I know that a girl from your school with your type of hair,
has recently put those ‘curly perm’ curls in her hair and after chemically straightening your hair for years,
you also want the same curls.
Don’t do it. You will end up in a hair salon where they will
tell you that you can’t get the curls unless you cut all the hair off that is
previously straightened and even though you don’t want that , the hair dresser
will tell you, that she will start cutting your hair to make it even and she
will cut so much off that everyone thinks that you might as well let her cut
off the straightened hair because she has cut a lot of your hair already. So she will do that and you will get the
curly perm that you desired so much.
But it is a very short do, so it will end up looking nothing
like the curls of that girl. You will not like it. And your hair will never be
as long as it was back then. You will find out much later that you have natural
curls that you love and you will keep your natural hair for years for that
reason, even though there are times in which you yearn for straight hair but
you are too afraid to lose your natural curls, so you will stick with them and
only now and then use a flat iron to straighten your hair. Your choice for
natural hair will also be because you hope that your hair will grow long again and
even longer than it has ever been but you will not make enough effort to give
your hair the extra care that it needs, to retain length, so it will not work
much.
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| Me with natural curls a few years ago |
You have done well in passing from the HAVO and because you
have math and physics, you believe that your best choice in study is
physiotherapy. Think about it some more. It will be nothing like you expected,
really very medical, because you need to
know all names of bones and muscles. You will not like it and will not be successful
in completing it. You will decide to a totally different study after 1 year and move back to Suriname where
you first do a preparation year at the university because you need to have the
subject Economy to be allowed to study Law.
You will pass this and start Law but will never finish it
but it will always keep you thinking;
maybe one day I will still finish my Law studies. It is something your late father always wanted
you to finish and you told him that you would. And you will never give up on the possibility
to do it because your dad also got a university degree when he was in his
sixties and he received the title of professor in Dutch literature.
You will end up finishing some other education which you
never expected and which I am sure your dad would’ve been proud of too. You end
up studying Childcare and Early Childhood Education when you will be a lot
older. But it will change your life so much and you will desire to even study
further in this area.
I know you think that you are ready to live on your own, while
you start your physiotherapy study but you are not. You don’t have a choice
because your mother decides to move back to Suriname because of sickness of her
partner. You also want to be close to the school, where you are studying so you don't have to travel far, so you decide to move to a city where you hardly know anybody. But living on your own will not be as great and easy as you thought. You will not have a tv and you will not have
any nice house mates (only two strange guys) and not a lot of good contacts where
you live. Even though you do have some friends, you will feel quite lonely in
your room and you will not like being alone so much and this will stop you from
really being able to study like you should. When you move back to Suriname, where you
start your law study , studying goes much better for you. You only go live on
your own again when you are much older and then you can handle it better.
Don’t worry about growing up and being independent,
everybody does that on his own pace and you will get there on your time. Even though you are 17, inside you are still a little girl. Don't worry, you will end up just fine.
Love,
Current me.
What would you like to say to your younger self ?
I would love to hear from you.
Love,
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