Dear Sixteen Year Old Jenni...

Dear Jenni,

I've been trying to rack my brain for what it was like to be 16 years old. What are your hopes, dreams, loves, hates, I ask myself. What little gem of wisdom can I offer to you? I consult my diary. (FYI Jenni, your appauling handwriting does NOT improve with age). So many questions! Will you pass your A Levels? Will you go to University? Will I make life-long friends? Will you get a boyfriend? The answer to all of these things: yes. Will you be a size 12? Will you get the job of your dreams? Will you ever be truly happy? The answer: 'outlook not so good'.

The next couple of years will be the best of your life to date: at first you'll hate it. You've just started at a new 6th form; you feel out of your depth. Then you'll meet those life-long friends of yours, you go to parties, get drunk, flirt, fall in love, argue and become naively confident. You'll have the best of all worlds - music, friends, family, boyfriends, no money - but you don't care. Embrace it all! Do all the embarrasing stuff you did - they'll make great stories. If anything - don't hold back, be a prat, be arrogant, be stupid - people don't care. They're embarrasing and arrogant and stupid too! Say what you think and mean what you say - learn now, because it'll only get harder as you get older.

A teacher will say to you the following words "your writing style is magnificent, but your content is awful". You will ponder these words for years to come. You will morph them into every aspect of your life until they apply to everything; work, life, love. You hope to meet this teacher again if only to present them with the best essay they've ever read on Lady Macbeth.

Then you'll go to University and you'll struggle at first - but then again you'll meet the people you'll hold dear for ever. You'll get so drunk you can't see, and sleep through lectures and meet weird and wonderful people. But after you leave you'll worry that you didn't live the experience to the full. So get drunker! Go to more clubs, snog strangers, streak, go to more house parties, dye your hair weird colours and listen to more music.

You'll have your heart broken, and mended and broken again and you'll learn nothing from it. You'll feel so sad you'll think you'll never feel happy again - but you will. And you'll be so grateful you went through all of it. You'll treat some people badly, and some people too nicely. And once again I beg and pray that you could just learn to speak your mind and be selfish and brave. Think of number one because you'll learn that everyone else does. And don't worry - you won't be working at Waitrose forever. But you WILL have jobs that you hate even more than that.

And then you'll start work and that's where it all become a bit scary. After a couple years of struggling with money (to the point of not being able to pay for your bus fare) you'll start to become responsible. You'll open an ISA, you'll learn how to iron and cook a dinner which requires more than "peel back plastic and microwave for two mnutes". You'll long for the days when you had no responsibilities.

The worst year of your life will be 2008. Among money problems, missing home and no direction - Mum won't be well and you'll truly believe there's only one outcome. But if only you knew she'd get better - those tears you shed, those sleepless nights will make you realise the depth of your love for your family and friends. You'll promise yourself that you'll make everyday count and realise how blessed your life is. Promise me, promise yourself, you do.

On the practical side: learn how to drive (you'll never find the time), do lots of work experience (you'll only have to do it after University), read the newspaper (great for pub quizzes if nothing else), expand your music collection (you'll be eternally jealous of those will large album collections) grow your hair long and DO NOT bite your nail, and never ever get a credit card (it will take you two years to pay off the damage)

So my advise for you Jenni is be reckless, say you what you feel, don't take your friends and family for granted, take more photographs and learn to like yourself a bit more. Other people do.

Oh, and buy hair straighteners almost straight away after reading this letter. You'll never look back.

All my love,

Jenni