My teenage years are still very vivid.

I can literally conjure up the feelings I had as a teenager, those of angst, overall frustration with my parental units, longing for someone to understand me and that horrible feeling of never being good enough.

This is a photo from junior prom.

When I look at this 17 year old girl I think she is pretty, that she looks nice, that I might like to be her friend.

Unfortunately I didn’t think those things about myself at the time.

I let the world and my peers tell me I was less than. I was self conscious, afraid and constantly intimidated.

The grownups around me all had the same message; “none of this matters and someday you will look back on your high school years and it won’t effect you at all.”

In my head I would be rolling my eyes and trying to hold back the tears.

Here’s the thing.

They were 100% correct!

Those kids that were mean to me, I don’t ever think about them. Those awkward moments I had as a very tall teenager, not even on my radar.

Those times I thought I would never be accepted for who I was…. quite the opposite in my life today.

I so wish I could go back to that teenage girl and tell her “you are smart, you are kind, you are so beautiful and someday the world will see what I see”.

With gratitude.