Dear younger me; Love and Pressure.

I haven't come today to scold you or make you feel bad about a decision you made years ago. I've come to understand you. I understand the place of peer pressure, especially when you're still learning how to make decisions for yourself. I understand what it felt like when it seemed as though every other person around you was getting into a relationship, and you were the odd one out. I remember how your friends talked about their relationships, how one of them teased you about hers, and how strange you felt admitting that you didn't have a boyfriend. You were just thirteen. 13. Somehow, you began to feel like you were missing out on something. So, out of curiosity, out of pressure, and out of a desire to experience what everybody else seemed to be enjoying, you decided to give it a try. But, little Brie, I want you to know something, I've never condemned you for that decision, and never will. You were young. You were learning. You were still discovering yourself and figuring out how to make decisions that reflected who you were, rather than what everybody around you was doing. Honestly, I don't even like calling that experience a relationship, because it was nothing close to what I now understand a relationship to be. But we called it one, and that's how we learned something from the experience. The experience wasn't healthy for you, not necessarily because something terrible happened, but because somewhere within you, you knew this wasn't you. You weren't doing it because you had thoughtfully decided that it was what you wanted, but because everybody else seemed to be doing it. I know that experience taught you something important; You were not created to fit in at the expense of who you are. There's no point trying to become a copy of the crowd when you have the responsibility of discovering who you are for yourself. Not every experience your friends are having is an experience you need to have, not every decision that works for someone else will be right for you, and you don't have to participate in something simply to prove that you're growing up. The courage to be different is sometimes the courage to say, "This isn't for me." I hope that experience taught you to pause before making decisions. To ask yourself why you want something. To understand the difference between what you genuinely desire and what you feel pressured to desire. And looking at the woman you're becoming, I believe you have learned a thing or two.So, little Brie, this is me appreciating you. The decision you made was not right, but you learnt, and I refuse to condemn you for being young and not knowing everything I know today. I'm proud of you, okay? You don't have to follow the crowd to prove that you belong, you don't have to experience everything at the same time as everyone else. And you know, you certainly don't have to abandon yourself just to feel accepted by other people. You are allowed to make choices that look different from everybody else's because you are learning to live a life that is true to you. With love,Your older self.

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