A Letter to my 11-Year-Old Self

Dear 11-year-old Beth,

I'm guessing that right now you are either coming to the end of your time in primary school, or you have just started secondary school. The next seven years of your life are going to be a very long and bumpy ride; with it at times feeling like it's worth it, whereas at other times it feels like you should just give up.

In a few months (if you didn't already know) your mum is going to tell you that she's pregnant. At first you take this pretty badly as when your first brother was born, he took all of the attention away from you and you felt that the same thing was going to happen again. However, by the time he is born you learn to love him and don't know how you could ever live without him. He is quite possibly one of the best things that has ever happened to you, and you hate yourself on a daily basis for how you felt when you first found out your mum was pregnant.

Right now you will have a group of friends that you will no longer be as close to by the time you turn 18, however you will still talk to them on the odd occasion. You will have thought during your time in primary school that you would always be friends for ever and would never leave each other's sides. Well, you thought wrong. You might all become friends again in the future, who knows? You will blame it on yourself for the fact that you are no longer friends with any of them, especially as they all seemed to remain relatively close with one another. You blame yourself for starting to remove yourself from that group and losing contact with them, instead choosing to make friends with other people (as that is what you're meant to do when you start a new school), but making friends with others (who eventually turned out to not be your friend at all) was the price you had to pay for not being friends with the people who mattered most to you.

The group of friends that you begin to associate yourself with around year 8/9 seemed to be genuine people who liked you for you. However, around half way through year 9 you start to find yourself being left out of things and not being included in anything. You try to cling to people and find a best friend, however they all already have a best friend and that person is not you. At times it feels like you are just following them around, in the hope of finally being fully accepted into the group. I'm not going to say that it gets better, but I'm not going to say that it gets worse either. I guess that it's just something that you learn to accept and eventually move on from, but more on that later.

In year 10 you will become friends (and eventually best friends) with someone who you wonder where she's been your whole life. She will be there with you for the many ups and downs that your life holds (and believe me there's plenty of those) and is always on hand to give you the best advice possible. Four years on and you are still as close as ever, and hopefully this will continue. You only want the best for her and she only wants the best for you.

During year 10/11, the end of 2014 and throughout 2015 is quite possibly the worst time of your life (so far). In November 2014 your parents split up, however fail to tell you this until almost a year later, towards the end of September 2015. You, of course, pick up on this pretty much straight away, but find yourself keeping it to yourself until your parents tell you the truth, however so far you have never admitted to anyone how long you actually knew for. And if you're thinking that this is the worst thing, then believe me it's not. At the end of January 2015 your cat dies, and then less than a week later at the start of February your Grandad dies. This will be one of the worst things you have ever experienced, and three years down the line you are still grieving. You miss them both everyday. One of the hardest things for you to do was to go to your Gran's a week after this happened and see someone sitting in your Grandad's chair. Every time you go into the kitchen you expect to see your Grandad sitting there, but he isn't. He's gone and you're struggling to face up to that. Even when you do eventually get it to go to the back of your mind, it's still there, reminding you every single day about the ones who you lost. You're annoyed at yourself that you chose being away from your brothers and being able to watch what you wanted on TV to spending your Grandad's last day on earth with him. You wish that you could turn back the clock, however, sadly, this just isn't possible.

Year 11 is quite a life-changer for you. It's your final year of secondary school and you have to make the choice of whether to stay or go elsewhere. It also marks the year where you meet a boy who will still be in your life today, in one way or another, however not how you might have hoped he would have been when you eventually get to know him. He is your type on paper and you start to have a crush on him, which eventually leads to bigger feelings and hoping that he feels the same. You both start talking and it's amazing at first. But then it all starts to go downhill once exams are over. You notice that he has started to become more distant and you have no idea why this is. You keep on trying because you like him so much, but it is no longer the same as it once was. You eventually find out that it's because he had a girlfriend. You are mad and angry at him, yet when you confront him about it he just chooses to ignore it and a few weeks later texts you, telling you that he's single again. Instead of ignoring him, you choose to start talking to him again and it becomes on-and-off for another two years. At the moment it is very much off, even though you still like him, and whether it will become on again some time in the future you are yet to find out.

Starting sixth form is a pretty big thing for you. You were originally going to go to another college, however later decide to stay on at your school - but whether this was a mistake or not, who knows? You find the work load a struggle to keep up with and your grades are constantly up and down, ranging from a U to a B, the entire time. You got very stressed, tired, and spending most of your free periods in Spoons. But don't worry, it all pays off in the end as you finish the two years with BCC, which is much better than you (and your teachers) ever expected.

Also during your time in sixth form, you manage to get yourself a boyfriend. At first things go amazingly well and for once in your life you are happy. You both start planning your future, from where you're going to live, to marriage, to having dogs, and to having kids. You believe that all of this is going to happen, which is why when things start to go downhill and you start thinking that you should break up with him, you can't bring yourself to do it. You know that you're an over-thinker so you just think that you are over-thinking the entire situation. Except you're not. After what feels like the longest month of your life from when things started to go drastically downhill, you come to learn that he also thinks that there is something wrong with your relationship and is doubting whether or not it can be saved. After a LOT of thinking, you finally get the courage to break up with him. Initially you are crushed by the whole thing. You can't stop crying and it feels like your heart has been shattered into a thousand tiny pieces. But over time you are able to build yourself back up again. You learn to live without him and move on with your life. There has been no-one in the picture thus far, but you are hoping that one day there will be, and he will show you the type of love that you deserve.

The final thing I am going to talk to you about is you moving house. Because your parents are getting divorced, this inevitably means that you will have to move house. The house move itself is very stressful to say the least as your original moving date keeps on getting pushed further and further back, to the point where it almost seems as if you are never going to move, until your mum gives the people buying your house an ultimatum of either moving in by a certain date or her putting the house back up for sale. You eventually move into your new house TEN DAYS before Christmas and were given less than 24 HOURS notice of your move. As there was quite a lot to do to the house, it still isn't fully complete; however there is only a couple more rooms to do. You are really enjoying it there and don't understand why you couldn't have moved there sooner.

As a final note, I would just like to say to you that you are good enough. That you don't need to be a shy little girl who is too afraid to talk to people. That you don't need to be constantly worrying about what people may or may not be saying about you. That you don't need to constantly over think every little thing that happens to you. But you also need to block the toxic people out of your life. You need to get rid of those who don't deserve to have you in their life. You just need to feel like you are able to be yourself around people and not feel like you have to act like someone you're not because people will love you for being you. You need to stop being so afraid of things and start putting yourself out there more.

Love 18-year-old Beth xx