Dear 15 Year Old Hayley......Or "Lee" as you currently like to be known (you'll grow out of that....and you'll stop hating your name so much in a few years too...).
I know that the first thing that you'll want to know is "is everybody ok?!" - you worry so much all the time about all of your family, and you panic every night incase something horrible happens to one of them. You'll be relieved to know that you're almost 32 now, and *touch wood* there have been no horrible disasters so far - so try to stop worrying so much!!
Although that will never happen - but eventually you'll start to realize that worrying and panicking about these things as much as you do isn't really right, infact you have a bit of an anxiety disorder and your fear of death is something that will haunt you for the foreseeable future - but you will start to try to find ways to help yourself. It'd probably be really useful though to start a bit earlier, so maybe when you go to see your Dr about it and he gives you a form to fill in ....maybe you shouldn't lie on all of those questions to avoid "looking silly". Answer them truthfully, maybe he can help you....
Try not to worry so much about school and feeling like an outcast. You're right about being a bit different - you are. But that's not the bad thing that you think it is at the moment. All of those girls at school who make you feel like crap every day, call you names, make you think that you're so ugly you should be ashamed and so weird - their voices might matter within the school walls, but in a few years time you'll realize that's the only place they've ever mattered.
They often tease you for being "fat" - you will realize in a few years when you look back at pictures that actually, you had a lovely slim figure!! When you're a bit older, you find out the reason for always feeling so anxious and having heart palpitations so much is that you have a thyroid disorder - and after a few years of medication, you do end up putting a lot of weight on. You don't enjoy being bigger at all - so PLEASE enjoy your skinniness while you have it!! You wasted it so much by constantly letting girls at school tell you that you were hideous!
I still don't know what their problem was, and sometimes if you let yourself think about them too much you'll still find it upsetting - but just try not to. Because the funny thing is that most of those girls haven't achieved anything much from that day to this - you pass them occasionally on the street and they look the same, they hang around in the same crowds, live in the same places, go out with the same people - and they still seem to be the nasty little people they were then. Some of them even try to add you on social networking sites as though you've suddenly forgotten all of the years they spent torturing you.....You're clever enough not to waste your time on them. Trust me - once school is over with, they never matter again. Even the school itself will be torn down in a few years time....
Some of the people you went to school with though, you do keep in touch with and its nice to see that some of them have gone on to lead nice happy lives and are nice people - its the ones that you were friends with back then. So see - you made good choices!!
I know that at the moment you worry a lot because you haven't had a boyfriend yet - don't. Once you start at 17, you're not actually single again for more than a month at a time! You have quite a few long term relationships with people in the end, so don't worry - you're not a spinster!I feel like I should tell you something really prolific - something about how your life ends up and how fantastic it is - but that would make it feel like an "ending" kind of letter and really, things are actually only just beginning in life.
You're a new Mum now - you had a son! Yes...that's right....a SON!!! I know you always thought you only wanted girls and you're probably currently panicking about what on earth you'd call a boy and how you'd manage to dress him in pink all the time - don't worry, you do what you always knew you would and give him a very unique name....and you find ways to work your signature color into his wardrobe! ;)
In fact, you actually love having a baby boy - you were the first person in the family to have a boy since Peter was born - and he's nearly 30 now!Now that you have a boy, you actually can't imagine ever having a girl - but its ok, because you can still satisfy your love of girly things and dressing up with your nieces - you have two of them!!!! And a nephew on the way!!
Yep - Loopy Lou becomes a Mummy before you! Imagine that?! She actually stops crawling around and pretending to be a cat and turns into a grown up!!! Now she has a daughter who crawls around and pretends to be a cat - it drives her mad, you think its hilarious. You don't find her so annoying anymore - you end up being friends with her actually. She's actually quite cool as far as little sisters go - and her daughters are fab! You LOVE being an Aunty!!
You're still close to your Mum & Dad like always, infact you're living with them at the moment. Yep - you move back home for a while!! So maybe don't be quite SO upset when you leave home the first time around - its not THAT bad! You actually LOVE being out on your own - you even move away from your beloved Liverpool to go and live in Devon!
You meet your eventual partner there - he's from Newcastle though, weirdly!! You meet him at work and at first you barely notice him - but you do in the end and then there's no looking back!
So basically "Lee"....stop worrying so much about everything. Your life is fun! You don't have anything too dreadful coming up for the next 16 years at least so you can have a rest from worrying all the time - you get to do some traveling which I know you're just desperate to do at the moment, you always continue to love writing - so keep practising! In fact, keep all those stories you write somewhere safe - it's such a shame that I don't know where any of them are!!!
Oh and one more thing - try to smile a bit more. I've been looking through old photos of you tonight, and you were such a bloody miserable looking cow!!!!! ;)
Love from 31 Year Old Hayley
xxx
I'm linking up with Charlotte from Write Like No One's Watching - check out her own post HERE
