Callie,

I'm not going to lie to you, life is hard. It will knock you down in more ways than one, and most times you won't even see it coming. Some of these times you may just get some bruises or a scraped knee, other times it's going to knock the wind right out of you until it feels like you're gasping for air. There's going to be times you look around at life and don't understand anything that is going on. It will be frustrating and it will be scary.

There will come a time where you have to make decisions for yourself. Be prepared, there are times where you will make some horrible choices. You may make them because you genuinely think it's what's best, you may make them because your emotions get the best of you, and other times you may make them because you don't know what else to do. No matter what the reasoning, you will make those choices, and sometimes they will be mistakes.

You will date people that are not right for you, fall in love with someone you shouldn't. Fall in love with someone you should, and lose them because of something you said or did. You will lose friendships because of your own selfish ways, gain new friends because you learned to put your selfish ways behind you. You will cut your hair and then realize that you wish you hadn't. You will think you don't need your mom's help, then realize you can't live without her. You will choose to live a certain lifestyle, only to realize it's not the lifestyle you want.

Yes, you will want to fix your mistakes. You will want to fix them so bad. You will want to put all the pieces back to where they were before. Understand that you will NOT be able to fix all of these mistakes. Sometimes all you can do is apologize and move on. You can't fix everything. Through mistakes, you will lose friends, you will lose boyfriends, and you will lose trust. You will feel as if the world is crashing down on you all because of mistakes you made.

But take heart. You will learn. With every mistake comes a learning experience, some learning experiences will be much harder than others. But you will learn. You will learn even at your lowest point to pick yourself up and dust yourself off. You will learn there are some things you can't change. Don't force yourself to try to fix situations and fix people that are out of your control. Let it go. Let them go. Learn to forgive yourself.

Here's to being perfectly imperfect,

Your Older Self