I....like most young girls,once kept a diary. It was the old fashioned kind with a lock that didn't really work and the gold leaf pages. I loved that diary, it was my source of venting growing up. Every frustration in my life and who I was went onto those pages. Boys who never looked my way, friends who I was never sure really liked me, all my insecurities were shared with no one but that diary...
Not too long ago, I came across my old diary and found myself intrigued with each entry I read. I wrote in that diary...sometimes religiously and sometimes very rarely....from the ages of 9 to 18...that is a lot of history! Today? I am 28 years old and a far cry from that once insecure girl trying to find her place in the world. The past 10 years gave me a confidence and a life the 13 year old me could only dream of.
Reading the pages of my old diary, I thought of what I would say to that younger version of me...the me who was certain her life would never get better. It made me sad to read how much I hated who I was and how I wanted any life but my own. And I was embarrassed to read how I often treated or put down nice people in an attempt to gain that life.
Then I realized, I am far from the first, the last or the only girl to have a tough time in her teens growing up. In a world of social pressures: beautiful models with perfect everything in the magazines, "teen" lives portrayed on TV shows, social media and the constant ability to compare yourself to others, etc., I believe it must be even harder for teen girls today.
So I decided to share my old diary entries and the struggles I had as a teen and then write my thoughts on those entries, my current life, and the advice I would give the 13 year old version of myself or any other teen girl that might find herself reading this.
I'll try and give some background on the entries and explain what I can...they do jump around quite a bit as I wrote randomly for 9 years. I also will likely change some names as I am sharing a past life but do not want to hurt anyone---or let any of those boys from my past know I had crushes on them :).
Hopefully you enjoy--we will see how this goes :)
