Letter to my seventeen year old self

Shut up. No, seriously shut up. Right about now, you are a moody, petulant teenager, and I can't be bothered dealing with you. So for once in your know-it-all life, Be quiet.

The thing is, I'm bored of you. I think you are quite funny, what with how you think your world-view is completely correct, and you honestly don't understand how much you have to learn, and how lucky you are to be the child of two still-together, middle class parents who can afford to send you to private school. God, you are so right-wing, and you don't even know why.

And all your activities. dude, you are so busy, what with the basketball, and the netball, and the debating and the drama and clan leader-thing, and, you know, having a life. And school. Aah, yeah, sometimes I miss school.

But while I find you vaguely amusing, be quiet.

Because, you know what, I'm bored of your voice, increasingly loud, in the back of my head.

You know what? I don't much care that you thought I'd be married by now (seriously, what were you thinking? Did you meet yourself?), or at the very least in some kind of meaningful relationship. With a boy preferably tall. Wow, you didn't leave me any standards or anything, did you? And you thought I'd be thinking about children. Well, I am, but mostly about how I don't really like them.

And I know you thought by now, I'd be all call with a career and high heels and an office and a briefcase and a mobile phone. Dunno what you thought I was gonna be, cos none of those things come with my job. Except the high heels, and only some days. (And I geuss the mobile phone. Not in the way you imagined though, right?) You wanted me to work in an office. Too bad.

And the house. The three story house you spent four years doodling. With its pool and its glass wall and massive rooms. Yeah, good luck with that. Do you know anything about the housing market? Or my salary?

And how you just thought that by now, I'd be a grown up.

Yeh, you were pretty unrealistic, weren't you?

You know what, I want those things too. I just don't expect most of them anytime in the next 20 years.

So, little voice in the back of my head, reminding me what you think. Shut it. I'll get there. And I'll do it my way, not yours. Dude, you had appalling hair. And really bad clothes.