What I wish I knew... (Week 1)

There are a lot of things I wish I knew back then. Hindsight is always 20/20 of course. Still, what I wouldn't give to go back in time and teach my past self so many important lessons. What I wouldn't give to have my future self appear and give me advice. Doesn't everyone?

I wish that my eight-year-old self knew that it was ok to ask Mom for more food and that she didn't have to sneak it up to her bedroom.

I wish my twelve-year-old self knew that she didn't have to look like the other girls. And that makeup and hair dye wouldn't change that she didn't. I wish she knew that beauty wasn't the only thing in life. I wish she knew that it was ok to not have the perfect nose or a completely flat stomach. That she didn't have to get rid of food after she ate it.

I wish my sixteen-year-old self knew so many things. I wish she knew it was ok to be broke and vulnerable. It was ok to be honest. That she was allowed to tell the truth. That her family would still love her if they knew everything she was hiding from them. That it was ok to be different from the other girls. That it was ok to break up with the asshole boyfriend who she didn't love but needed because she thought no one else would ever love her. I wish she knew that treatment was going to suck. That every day there would be awful and hard. That she would have to work harder than she ever had before. But that she would get through it. That she would come out stronger. That she would be able to one day tell people without embarrassment. I wish she knew how her body didn't matter. Only that she did.

Of course, I don't have a time machine. And I can't go back to tell myself these things. But, I can tell myself these same things now. Because they will always be true. Something I wish I knew back then was that life is never normal. It's life. It's unpredictable. It's scary. It's beautiful. It is everything.

And it's worth it.