Dear Teenaged Darla,

I know you are probably not going to listen to me.  But, I felt the need to write to you. I am you, Darla at thirty. Yes, you live to be thirty and will probably live to be much older. I know you probably don’t believe me, but it’s true. I did want to give you some advice though to make the next decade or so a little easier for you.

I want you to know that things get easier. Life gets calm and the people around you get more stable. You will be presented with some great opportunities pretty soon, and you really need to take them. It’s important for you not to live your life for other people and do what is best for you. Also, trust your instincts and stand up for yourself. By the time I figured out that I can stand up for myself, it was already much too late. I don’t want you to make that same mistake again.

Darla, I also want you to know that you need to be on your own. I know it seems hard and even impossible, but you need to stop supporting everyone else, and just do what you need to do for yourself. Learn to love yourself. You will find out eventually that you’ve always known yourself. You never really change, but you stop believing in the “you” that everyone else tells you that you need to be. You’re not crazy. Well, a little, but it isn’t like what people think. You’re just different and amazing and brilliant and wonderful and kind and all those things that got drilled out of your head. You are a good person. It shouldn’t take you so long to know it.

One more thing, stop drinking and hurting yourself. There is no reason for that. And, stop being so angry. Someday you’ll find that there was never any real reason to be angry. I know you have a temper and a lot of the time you can’t control it, but believe me when I say that there will come a time when the people around you won’t even believe that you were ever so full of rage and hate and angry. You have to come to the decision to just let it go.

Darla, I love you as I love myself.

Take care of yourself,

Darla at Thirty