Dear Self..

You're going to have some struggles, so sit up straight, pay attention and plan.
You'll feel such pain for your family, and you'll experience such love.
You'll have to sit with your mum countless times, helping her with problems, cuddling her whilst she cries, supporting her at all costs. You'll be there when her mum dies, you'll be there for the next 15 years everytime she gets upset about loosing her, trying to fight back tears yourself as you listen to her sob knowing there's nothing you can do except share in the few years you remember of her. You'll break down and cry yourself because all you want is a cuddle from your granny, for your granny to be here so your mum doesn't have to cry anymore. You'll have tears fall everytime you think about her, because you miss her as much as she did, and because you know that your mum to this day still needs her. 

 You'll go to your mum and dads wedding, and when your 23 you'll still remember how you ran into the graveyard holding your doll and cried a little. You'll never know why you cried, you were happy for your mum, but for 4 years it had just been you, your mum, your granny, and now you have to share her. 
At the age of 23 you'll look at photos of their wedding when your creating a mothers day present for her and feel such emotion, you won't know why, but you feel a great comfort that you were there to see them get married, that you are in a photo where they are kissing, that your granny was there to witness your mums happiness, that she married such a great man.

 You'll let into your heart the most amazing father, at first it'll be difficult, and you'll feel strange from time to time, this is to be expected, you are just getting to know him, but you'll always feel safe with him. Over the years you'll have arguments and scream at eachother, but even the times you think you hate him, and your crying like an idiot you'll always jump to defend him if anyone says a bad word against him.You'll be forever loyal to him, and as you grow up you'll know you care for him because you chose to, and that he chose you to be his daughter. He wanted you! 


You'll welcome a little brother, and a little sister who you'll care for as your own. Your siblings will come to you whenever they need anything, whenever they want a hug, and at 7 you'll be changing your little sisters nappies and feeding her as much as possible to help your mum and dad out. This will turn out to be great, you wont understand until your older how much pressure this took of your mum and her teaching, and how much closer it'll bring you as a family. In the future your brother and sister will trust you with every secret and you'll be able to help them out whilst giving your parents a clear mind that there okay.


At some point you'll have to mediate between your mother and father, for some reason they seem to not be getting on, there always arguing, they aren't spending any time together and there both upset. It pains you to see this, and you often get involved telling them they need to not be together or they need to start acting like a couple again, you tell them you want them to kiss, to be affectionate, to go away just themselves and reignite the spark. Your told your much older than your years, and your mum continues to come to you every time she needs you. Your parents get through whatever it was, their happy, they kiss, they cuddle, they still argue, it still upsets you and your siblings, but then they make up. They spend their weekends together as soon as your all old enough to be left, you couldn't be happier! 


At 13 you fall ill, you have 6 weeks off school and can't stay awake longer than a few hours a day, your mum panics when you shrink down to age 10 clothes, your so tired. For the duration of your high school period you struggle, eventually the doctors diagnose you with M.E/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, your distraught and fight against it, this does you no good and you take weeks at a time off school. You need to accept that your not well, you need to stand up for yourself when people dont understand, they say your lazy and just need a good nights sleep, you need to not challenge yourself thinking its physcological, you need to keep going to school once/twice a week and up it when you can. You will pass all 9 of your GCSE's and you'll cry with happiness, whilst hiding guilt knowing you should have done better. For years you'll cry yourself to sleep and argue with your mum when she's trying to help, shouting at her that you can do it yourself, then dropping to the floor crying because all you want to do is go to school, be a normal teenager and have friends. You'll find a great group of friends who will understand and support you, who will fight your defense if anyone dares mention a reason your not at school, you'll all spend your summer holidays together, birthdays together, have house parties and drunken escapades with eachother, you'll pass your driving tests together and when your in upper sixth they'll buy you a chocolate cupcake because for the first time since you've fallen ill 5 years previous you'll have made a whole school week. You'll cry in the middle of the playground and be hugged by everyone. One of your friends will become your first boyfriend at 17, you will be happy for a time, but it was never meant to be, in the end you'll just feel betrayed by your friend, nothing more. In future years you'll see him around as you share the same friends, and you'll wonder what happened to the boy he was, he doesn't even hold a trace of that person he once was. You loose a lot of weight in this time, but its because your not happy with your life. You want to move away, have your own life, you feel claustrophobic. With your best friend at hand you go to college and start a part time job. You finally gain self confidence, you are faced head on with having to hold your head up high, and be composed, guess what: you succeed! You move away to university and come out a fashion design graduate, your personal life over this time will be tough, and you'll always dismiss yourself to an excruciatingly low standard. You'll let people treat you like dirt over and over again and when you finally start appreciating yourself you'll come out on top and can look forward to the future. 


 You'll meet the person of your dreams, you'll wonder why someone like him would look at you, he tells you you are the most beautiful girl he has ever seen, exactly what he described to his friends before meeting you, you'll go on a 'platonic' date, and you know your falling for him already. You go on your first proper date, and you walk along embankment holding hands, going to a fancy restaurant where he finds you endearing because of how out of place you feel. You nervously say that its odd how odd it doesn't feel, you know there's something about him. You stay with him at his place for days on end, and its already your joint home, he doesn't want you to leave, you know your falling head over heels in love. Within weeks your together, and at Christmas you both express your love. He moves back to his home town (your home town), 50 miles to be with you, you don't know this until a few months later he tells you, you want to cry! The thought makes you tear up even now, you move in together and you're so in love, so happy.

 Your grandpa will fall ill, and you don't know how to feel, he's a lovely man but has always been strict, you hate seeing him so frail, and you worry now for your dad. You start to worry about your mum, she's not taking enough care of herself, and everytime you think of the two of them you well up.. You want to protect everyone but you feel so tired, it's not your job but you'll always do it. You need your mum to be okay! You go home to your partner and he cuddles you whilst you cry. From the beginning you two have discussed children and marriage, and at this time there is nothing you want more than to be his wife, and have a family, you worry about your small family slipping and it makes you want it all then and there.

You no longer worry about what people think, you wonder why everything has to be planned so much in advance, how is a few more years going to help? You want to be able to share the happiness whilst people are still around, that's more important to you than anything, and so your at a crossroads. 
 

 You'll learn you are the most loyal person to your family, that you are scared to open up but eventually do, that when people say you can fall head over heels for someone- it can happen, that all those years you thought you weren't good enough, pretty, whitty enough, you'd never be happy are behind you, and that you are worth it! 

Life is to short for endless plans and worries, just be.