Dear 10 Year Old Me

Dear 10 year old me,

This is a warning.

You're about to go into Secondary school and only one of your friends from Primary school will be joining you. This makes you happy, but you don't know what's to come. You and she drift apart, it's not something that bothers you anymore, but at the time it sucked so much, you thought that was what would eventually happen to all of your friendships, but I promise it doesn't.

You make it through the first half of your first year with an abundance of friends, you have never been this popular before, almost everyone in your classes seems to get along with you and you have a nice big group of friends who seem to care for you, you even get a boyfriend (he turns out to bat for the other team, but you're still really good friends with him), everything seems to be going so well for you, but it wasn't destined to last. One by one you lose friends and you lose faith in the people around you ever liking you from the start.

Then the bullying starts. Everyone is turning against you, people you once called best friends, people you held on such high pedestals it's hardly surprising you fell when they did. By the end of your first year you only have one friend. But you don't mind because she is a good friend. It's the bullying that gets to you. It's relentless, you consider calling in sick, feigning an illness so terrible you never have to see those people again, but you love school so much that you keep going, no matter what you have to learn because that spark in you is still there.

But I have some bad news for you, you turn into a bitch, you pick on those less fortunate than you because you don't yet realise that you can be better than them and take the high road. You harbour all your hate for these bullies and you force others to endure that hatred, you feel better for a split second, it means someone else understands how you feel, but then you feel guilty because you feel like shit and to realise that you made someone else feel this way makes it feel like a knife is being stabbed into your stomach and twisted round and round until there's nothing left. But you don't learn until much later.

Second year ends and you still only have one friend, but you enjoy your summer with your family, always with your family, never with friends. And when you return for your third year, that one friend you held onto through the bullying, stops talking to you. You don't know why and you begin writing lists of reasons someone could hate you, but reading back on them you realise these are just reasons you hate yourself and you do, you think you need others to justify your happiness. You cry out for a friend and one day...someone hears you.

You begin with one friend that you make in science class and through them you meet more and more people. It took you a while, but you got there again.

In fourth year one friend in particular becomes someone very dear to you and you have to admire her because she has forgiven you for all the shit you unloaded onto her in second year. There isn't a day that goes by that you don't thank your lucky stars to have found her because she inspires you everyday to be ruthless in dealing with terrible, poisonous people, and you used to be one of them for her. She slays you and all your faves. (And I'm sure she'll love reading this, I do hate being this sentimental)

Secondary school, for this reason, is both the best and worst part of your life so far. A lot of me thinks it's the reason you're still messed up emotionally (you were way worse until about a month ago).

And that's really what this letter is about, to remind myself and other people that it does get better. I've definitely taken myself to dark places that I thought I would never get out of, but a small group of people have helped me overcome this terrible sadness that loomed over me and I really want to credit them, but I don't want to do it on here in such an impersonal way. I hope you know who you are, whether it's comforting me when I drink and cry, when I sober cry, when I need a laugh, or just don't want to be alone, you all sit with me, invite me over for movie nights and just make my days brighter.

I love you all, and to 10 year old me I say, from this position I'm in now, I wouldn't change a thing because without those shitty years, you might not be where you are today.

Until next time,

Stephanie