If you could write a letter to your younger self, what would you say?

I’m not talking about placing bets on sporting events like Biff from Back To The Future 2 before anyone asks – what real advice would the teenage you need to hear? This is something I was encouraged to do earlier in the year, and last month I had a go at writing a letter to my 19-year-old self, just starting his second uni year in that most peculiar of times – the year 2000. I found it to be a fascinating and in many ways therapeutic experience – and this is what I wrote.

Hello you.

Still getting over the 90s? Well that’s understandable, after all a lot happened. It’s a decade you began in the second year at junior school and finished with your first term at university. Lots of people talk about wanting to be back in the 90s and you’ve contemplated it too… before asking yourself if you really want to do all of that again.

Let’s summarise things:
– You’ve just started your second year at uni after stumbling through the first, realising your ability to analyse literature is distinctly not great, especially the night before the essay is due. At least you started the day before though, unlike that girl in your class who threw an essay together three hours before the latest it could be handed in. Oh, and you were given the wrong unit to study at least once. It’s been a year since you didn’t get those brilliant grades you were forecast for your A-levels and now you’re trying to pull things back… with mixed results.
– The week you did your final exam ahead of summer, Homebase made you redundant. So there you were with the whole of summer ahead of you, with plenty of time to job hunt but not plenty of money in the meantime. Interviews with both Comet and Woolworths didn’t get you a job – turns out these places don’t just hire anyone & everyone like you were led to believe (and what on earth was that exam Comet got everyone to do?!).
– You’re in the final year of your teens and if that isn’t hard enough, Harry Enfield’s Kevin The Teenager and that American Pie movie really aren’t doing much for the reputation of teenage boys. Of course that’s all BEFORE you apparently become a hapless husband and embarrassing dad later on, if every portrayal of married couples on TV is anything to go by. You’re starting to wonder when relationships will start to become appealing…
– Anything else? Your new uni friends are trying to convert you to socialism even though you don’t really understand what that is, and your parents are acting like that’s the last thing they need when they already have one child requiring brain surgery (middle sister’s operation is very soon). At least they agree on that while they’re disagreeing over a lot of other things…
– You just started your first blog! Writing about popular culture and the music charts. Because you have no idea what you want to do in life but you kind of like being a journalist….

Wow. And to think that summer still felt like one of the more stable times of your life compared to most of the 90s.

Time for an unpacking.

You’re 19. You’re still growing. You’re still learning. You’ll always be learning. Your A-level results felt like a disappointment, but then you never claimed to be the class swot. Even with your posh voice and good handwriting. Over time you will come to understand your younger self better. You don’t have to have any firm decisions about your future, and away from essay deadlines, you learn at your own pace.

Homebase did you a favour letting you go. It’s not easy knowing where everything is in a store that size. It’s a wonder they stayed in business as long as they did considering nobody knows where the sandpaper is (it’s in the car care section because OF COURSE that’s where it should be). You’ll be moving on to better things soon, that are also better than working at Comet and Woolworths could ever have been.

Your self-esteem is low and your friends are few because you spent years in a school environment where peers would point out your faults but never gave you encouragement to change, instead they shamed you by impersonating your voice and spreading gossip about you. The cane may have been outlawed but people still found sticks to beat each other with. Those peers who picked on you didn’t have the supportive home life you had. They’re barely worth your pity, let alone your time.

It’s a similar story with Men Behaving Badly and those other shows. You grew up with a condition which makes it difficult for you to distinguish between jokey ‘banter’ (that word will pop up way too much in the future) and genuine malice. But you’re not a clumsy family man in the making. The whole concept of the ‘midlife crisis’ is because society doesn’t really know what it wants from people in their 40s. But being a certain age doesn’t mean you can’t take up new hobbies or try new things.

Politics is complicated and over-simplified too often. It’s similar in a lot of ways to the essays you’ve had to write recently. But different perspectives are worthwhile. You don’t have to pledge alleigeance to any party, but you’ll get a few opportunities to chair meetings and learn new things about yourself. In time, you will come to appreciate this era and it will make you a better person. Even when you’re sat there waiting for your dial-up internet to start, you’ll come to appreciate the faster speeds that are coming!

We’re often told to do something our future selves will thank us for. And by showing up for your second year at uni, starting your blog, and not giving up, I thank you for that. I might go find the video with the Blue Peter time capsule now, you’ll be well excited when you find out about videos on-demand…

What era of your life would you like to have received a letter from your future self from, and what nuggets of life advice would you give?