wordful wednesday and a letter to my teenage-self

dear sue

you are beautiful (even though you don't think you are)

you are smart.  a different kind of smart.  not the kind that gets As in school, but as you will discover, they don't turn out to be that important in the grand scheme of things

first impressions are ALWAYS lasting ones

maya angelou says 'when people show you who they are, believe them;

this women is right!

you DO have a flat stomach (even though you don't think you do)

of course, you won't realise this until after you have given birth 4 times and that flat stomach is but a distant memory that you never really appreciated.

it is true - youth is wasted on the young

you will have MORE fun in your 40s that you can ever hoped or imagined you would

you will love to dance, dress up and have fun

you are funny

you are a good friend

you need to worry less about what people think.  there's nothing wrong with stating your preference, even if it's different to that of others around you

you do NOT want to be an air hostess.  it's way less glamorous than you think, and by the time you turn 20 (which is the age at which you can join the airline), you will have discovered that your talents lie elsewhere.

you will become more than slightly anal about mis-placed apostrophes and grammar in general.  you will also care way more about table manners than you ever thought possible.

you will discover that these things ARE important.  especially the last one.

your mother is right (pretty much all the time).  of course you won't discover this until you have children of your own, and it will take you that long to tell your mother how much you appreciate her.

cold duck is a BAD WINE.  drinking this to excess at the party you crash at the burnside rugby club rooms will result in you puking out your bedroom window into your parents' precious garden.  if they discovered it, they pretended not to see it.

parents have eyes in the backs of their heads

they also HEAR everything.

this will be handy for when you are a parent and your kids think you are stupid

parents are NOT stupid

you will also discover that it's ok (NECESSARY even, some days), to feel and act 18,

even though you've just turned 48