Okay, so admittedly life didn’t go the way we envisioned it would at 10 years of age.

Young Lauren, young naïve Lauren, so full of hope, dreams and optimism. If you’re reading this, I hope you’ve developed a sense of humour because no, you’re not living in New York with your best friend, you don’t yet have your own column and yes, you do still live at home with your parents. But even with all of these factors combined, you’re still the strongest and oddest person you know, despite the constant rejection.

Now, my advice to you comes in three parts. Sit down, grab a cup of dilute juice (I mean, I assume we’re still drinking Vimto, right?) and nab the comfy spot on the sofa. You may want to scream and shout at all the embarrassing things you’ve done over the years, but that’s totally okay and I promise not to disclose all of the sordid details.

If I remember rightly, we’re currently going through the early stages of puberty and will face a number of challenges – male attraction being one of them. We eventually develop a great sense of humour and soon enough a number of people will fancy us because hello, who doesn’t like to laugh?

In time, we become pretty quick witted, turning our disheartening rejections into comical content and hey, our compulsive need to correct one’s spelling and grammar in English finally paid off. We get paid to correct people now, who’d of thunk it?

Clothes

We’re going to go through an array of phases that mum (and we) will wish never happened, but it’s all about finding what best suits us. At 24, we’ve somehow managed to combine – and refine – all the cringe trends we put our wardrobe through, over the years. Although, with that said, the laces in hair thing had to go pretty quickly. We’re on the verge of getting the hang of style… sort of. Style is pretty personal and soon enough we regret throwing away the clothes we cringed at because we’re vintage hoarders to date. Come to think of it, you probably have some pretty cute vintage gems that needn’t be thrown away and would be oh-so useful right now.

Boys

They all suck and you’ll quickly realise just how much. Sure, the attention is phenomenal, but you’ll have to wait till your latter teen years – or rather, your twenties – in order to experience actual real life attraction. As we’re on the topic of men, I greatly advise hiding all the notebooks with ‘his’ surname scribbled all over them, he dates your friend and they both make fun of your faux undying love. But on the plus side, while his hair was cute and fluffy in school, it’s since grown greasy, weird and he looks like a potato, so she kind of saved you an awkward ex on the list.

I’d also advise not pinning all of your hopes on the slim pickins’ at your school. Rather, fantasise about men, or boys, who are out of reach as opposed to those who won’t text you back. Fill the pages of your books – alongside your math problems – with the Simon Webb’s of the world, the Busted boys and even that one fit lad from the Blazin’ Squad crew whose name escapes everyone past the noughties. It’ll break your heart so much less and will only take you about 14 years to realise how much more fun the unattainable ones are.

Life as we know it

The world kind of sucks right now, the worst has happened and the world is run by a president who used to be a TV presenter. Strange. To be frank the end is nigh, but the shoes and clothes combined are fab. On the plus side, your favourite designers continue to stun and you finally meet Alexa Chung… twice. Prosecco and earl grey tea make for incredible mood lifters and although the world is aflame albeit a little, we’re all kind of holding hands and singing kum-baya as a union. So I mean, not all bad.

A word of advice on the digital aspect of life and an important lesson never to be taken in vain. Don’t give into the peer pressure of the grand Facebook migration, stick to your guns and use MySpace for as long as you see fit. You later realise that MySpace and its ‘top friends’ drama – along with being the smallest problem you’d ever faced – was key in helping develop you for the digital world. Coding was a doddle and MySpace was your intro into that. Had you kept at it, you might’ve been a somebody at Google and not frequently fretting in the queues at Pret over which hot drink to order. Although great, the big FB is simply for stalking your peers, exes and unfortunately no one really cares for the time spent adding a tag name and colourful borders to your display picture, like they did on MS. A sad reality really.

PS. Don’t throw away your umpteen Tamagotchi’s, Furbies and Barbie Doll houses, they’re worth a fortune now. Think capitalist!

Love,
Lauren x

Image source: Unsplash