To My Sixteen-Year-Old Self,

Dear Lord, do you have a long way to go, my dear.

You think you know who you are now, but just you wait another three or four years. You won't recognize yourself. The high school years have a way of making you wish you were on your own already, independent and able; let me tell you, 18 is not the magic number that automatically means you're an "adult." And even so, once you get there, you're going to wish you were sixteen again.

In addition to that, I know how you view yourself, and I promise you that the girls who surround you in your high school classes are not going to be the kind of girls you're stuck around forever. And you know exactly who I'm talking about--either the ones with the perfectly pin-straight hair who've never worn the same outfit twice or the girls who try way too hard to not fit in. You fall somewhere in the middle between the "all of my clothes are from Goodwill even though I'm from a well-off family" crowd and the "I buy shirts that cost $30 a piece from fancy boutiques with my mom's credit card," crowd, and you feel like you don't fit in anywhere but drama club. And that is okay. (Those are the people you're going to make lifelong friends with, anyway.)

Please stop calling yourself fat and listening to the people who've called you that your whole life. You might pretend that it's not affecting you as much as it is, but it's going to come back and bite you in the butt later on.

Those girls who are your best friends now might not stick around for the long haul. And yes, even the ones who wanted to be bridesmaids at your wedding. People change and friendships fade, and that is okay. You will move on and make bonds you'll never even begin to question the strength of as you get older.

And most importantly, don't even begin to settle for less than what you deserve in a relationship. And yes, I'm talking about that one guy that can do no wrong in your eyes. You think you're going to marry him, and he may or may not think so too, but you'll learn later: the guy you're going to marry will not leave you crying in the rain after the bell rings, and he won't dangle other girls in your face. You'll come to embrace the personality traits he condemns you for, and you'll be standing up for other girls who've gone through the same things in good time.

The world is a huge place, and you haven't even seen the tiniest fraction of what you're going to experience later on in life. So don't get caught up in the whirlwind that is the high school experience, and keep on keeping on, girl.