I had a wonderful birthday and I promise to share more soon. I even managed to work out how to use iMovie on my birthday present, so have a little vlog for you. But for now I thought I would share some pearls of wisdom. Things I’d tell myself in my teens and early twenties. Things to remember as I get older. Things that undoubtedly make me appear like a wizened old lady.
1. You learn who your friends are – who to invest time in and who to let go.
2. You’ll never really feel grown up.
3. 30 comes around bloody quickly.
4. Planning your life away will only make you miserable.
5. You deal with more and more heartbreak the older you get.
6. Pulling one grey hair out doesn’t cause more to grow back.
7. Your skin will be worse than it was in your teens.
8. You’ll learn to love some of your flaws, others you’ll just grow to accept.
9. No regrets. Learn from mistakes. Don’t look back.
10. You start to really enjoy trips to the garden centre.
11. Do what makes you happy.
12. It’s never too late.
13. Comparison is the thief of joy.
14. If people bring you down, don’t spend time with them.
15. You will never stop loving Christmas, Halloween or Disney.
16. You will learn to love olives and mildly tolerate tomatoes.
17. Those Kappa jackets and Adidas popper trousers you wore as a 14 year old will come back to haunt you!
18. You won’t do anything useful with your degree or A levels.
19. Your metabolism definitely DOES slow down as you get older.
20. Your knees will constantly remind you of impending old age.
21. Those glasses you wore when you were 12 would actually be very cool now.
22. Korfball is pretty much the best sport ever invented and will fill the void that water polo leaves behind.
23. A fear of heights gets worse as you get older.
24. You won’t give a shit what car you drive as long as it works.
25. All your money goes on bills. You will regularly wear the same pair of shoes until they fall apart.
26. You will spend way more money on sports clothes than on a ‘normal’ wardrobe.
27. You will think walking holidays are brilliant and not geeky at all.
28. People will surprise you. Have faith in them.
29. You will love Paris as a grown up. Promise.
30. You will never regret giving up teaching. Ever!