To my 16 year old self...

Dear 16 year old Shelby,
You are just a sophomore at that big ole high school you were once scared of. You aren't driving yet because your parents wouldn't let you drive the day you turned 16 like everyone else got to...this really did work out for the better because you weren't that good of a driver at first. You are frustrated with your parents because they won't let you ride with your best friend the day she gets her licence...this is also good because when your parents finally do give in y'all probably turned on Flo Rida & T-Pain's new song Low or Hurricane Chris's new song A Bay Bay (thank goodness you eventually get better taste in music) and had the music blasting and weren't paying attention to the ambulance who almost hit you because you didn't get over in time because of the loud music and little did you know her mother WAS RIGHT BEHIND YOU. Thankfully she didn't tell your parents.
You are going to go to the beach for the first time ever that summer. With your three best friends and your best friends parents. You will pack 3 weeks worth of outfits in two bags for 1 week, you will hardly wear any of that because once y'all get down there you share clothes and wear your best friends white dress and spill some of your dinner on it and pray it comes out. You will make memories on this trip with your best friends that y'all will still talk about to this day some are a little embarrassing some are down right hilarious. 

Enjoy the moment. Enjoy high school. Enjoy being sixteen. Quit worrying about what everyone thinks about you or what will happen next. You are going to have some amazing experiences in life ahead of you. Stop and savor every single one. You are making good grades in all your classes but you aren't paying attention in your Spanish class like you should, this my dear will come back to bite you in your butt because if you would have paid attention instead of talking to your best friend you would probably remember some of the stuff you learned and use it at your job now.

Your high school football team will win the state championship game that year and it will be one of THE best games you have ever been to. When your team scores the last touchdown and the clock runs out a few mins later you and your best friend will jump up and down, hugging, laughing and crying...these are memories you will always remember.

You will have your first kiss that fall and you are going to think you have found the one...but you didn't. Bless your heart you are f-a-r from it.  You chase after him off and on for two years (no matter how much your best friends try to talk to you about him) only to be let down and hurt every single time. He will cheat on you twice and you will call your best friend and cry on the phone for 2 hours. Then it finally hits you that he is just no good for you and you can do way better. THANK THE LORD you got away from that because now he is a baby daddy, college drop out, has been arrested and can't keep a job.  Don't worry it makes you feel good knowing you make more money than him :)

You will lose your papa unexpectedly and be devastated for weeks because you didn't get to tell him you loved him one last time. 

You will miss a whole week of school. You will meet some of your distant Italian, LOUD, crazy relatives for the first time and LOVE them more than anything.

 Your best friend will drive 45 minutes to come to his funeral for 15 mins and to hug you and cry with you.
You are at the perfect weight and can wear the tightest little Hollister or Aeropostale shirt and still look cute even though you eat nonstop junk food. Be thankful for your 16 year old metabolism because your metabolism isn't so nice in the future, just thinking about Taco Bell will add five pounds to your thighs. You are experiencing with different make up and learning how to wear it, you will wear too much base and add too much powder and try to leave the house looking like a clown. Thank goodness your mom makes you take some of it off and rub the rest in. 

Your biggest responsibility is to make good grades and keep up with the latest fashions to look cute. You are getting an allowance of $20 every two weeks and you spend that all on homecoming t-shirts and different shirts your school sells, those will eventually become a stack in the corner of your room waiting to be made into a quilt. Your daddy buys you a Maxima and pays for your gas and even fills up your tank for you because you don't know how to pump gas yourself...bless your heart. Someone will hit your dad in YOUR car and total it, thankfully he is okay though but because of this you will have to ride the bus home from school...yes you have to ride the bus in high school at 16 years old. I know I know, you are humiliated but this will teach you not to take things for granted or someone buying you a car. Your biggest concern is what you will wear Friday night to the football game and what you are going to do after the game. 

You are going to spend almost every Saturday night watching scary movies with your three best friends eating pizza and tons of candy and ice cream. 

You aren't realizing at the moment but these are some of the best memories in the making. You take for granted your friendships with those three girls because you think they will ALWAYS be around and that y'all will ALWAYS be best friends. Little did you know you won't even be speaking to one of those girls by the end of your senior year.  You are wearing out that little burgundy Razor you just had to have like everyone else. You flip that thing open like you own the world and you pass along EVERY SINGLE chain text because lets be real if you don't you will die in three days....no, no you won't. 

Your sophomore year is one of your hardest years for you and at times you will think you life is over or that you have it so bad but really and truly you are one blessed 16 year old and your life is really just beginning. Patience is a virtue. Keep you head up girl, you are going to meet the love of your life in a little over a year and a half and realize that he was just 10 minutes down the road from you all these years and that it is all apart of God's plan for you.  Love,  Your future self

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To my 16 year old self...