A Letter to my 15 Year Old Self

As I look down the barrel of 30 years old, there are a couple of things I wish I could tell my own 15 year old self. So here goes:

Dear 15 Year old Lil Layne: 

How are you doing? How's the broadway musical commemorative t-shirt collection going? Helping you make friends in school? Spoiler Alert: It won't. Except in your choir circles, where the folklore about what happened one night in a child's size lincoln log cabin in the JFK airport on a choir trip will follow you for years to come. Double Spoiler Alert: nothing happened, and you just ate 5lb Hershey's Bar you purchased in Times Square by yourself while your friend Dan took a nap in the furthermost corner of the Lincoln Log Cabin away from you.  But I digress.

Now that we've gotten that little bit out of the way, there are a couple of things I'd like to tell you.

Lance Bass is not the "most attainable" member of Nsync. I don't know how to break this to you... but...Lance Bass is not interested in women. As probably the only girl in the gulf south region with over 100 posters of Lance Bass from Tiger Beat, I know this will be tough for you to hear. But even tougher than the news that Lance Bass is not interested in women will be this little development: as you approach your 30th birthday, you will routinely find yourself flirting with men who look like.....Joey Fatone.  And 85% of the time, they will reject you.

Bridget Jones' Diary is not a laughably far fetched comedy. By the time you approach 30, you will have lived many of those scenes that the movie will no longer be funny to you.  Certain situations where you suddenly come to an unwelcome realization that you are wearing not one, but 2 pairs of Spanx? Check.  Parents trying to set you up with divorcees? Check. Bad sweaters (or, in your case, an unfortunate pair of maroon sweatpants)? Check.  Failed cooking experiments that might result in minor fires, and/or the melting of grills? Check.  

But while we're on the topic: Please return that VHS rental of Bridget Jones' Diary you get when you are a senior in high school. You sort of ruin your parents account at the Magazine Street Hollywood Video on account of that movie and they end up having to pay like $300 because of it.

You will go to NOCCA, and Trombone Shorty will be in your orientation class. Yes, I'm talking about that little skinny kid they call "shorty" who doesn't know how to read music yet, but can play the sh*t out of a trombone. By the time you turn 30, he will be moderately famous, appearing on late night shows, and touring the world. People will pay money to see his shows. He will be on posters. And you? You'll be the girl who will be screaming to her friends, "I actually went to creative arts high school with him.....before I dropped out after two weeks." Also, being the girl who went to creative arts high school with Trombone Shorty before she dropped out after two weeks will get you NO backstage passes.  So just save yourself the time.  

You will learn to love blue cheese. Actually, you will learn to love all cheeses for that matter. Long gone will be the days of, "GOD MOM CAN'T YOU JUST BUY SOME AMERICAN CHEESE? I HATE CHEDDAR." Not only will you eat mild cheddar, you will eat sharp cheddar, maytag, brie, st. angel, goat cheese, roquefort cheese, and the list can go on. And you will literally eat it by the block. And you'll spend A LOT of money on it. Like, $15 on cheese sometimes. Sometimes you won't even have crackers. You'll just have a knife, or, in really desperate situations when you haven't done your dishes, a spoon.

You are not going to get rich off of those Beanie Babies. I actually just checked the value of your Beanie Baby Collection, and I think maybe now it might be worth pennies to the dollar. So much for making your parents drive to destinations all across Louisiana to find "Glory" the Americana Beanie Baby under the premise that it was going to "help you pay for college." Additionally, you will not get rich off of these other misguided collections:

• Absolute Vodka Ads 
• Got Milk Ads 
• Tamagotchi Pets
• Little backpacks made out of stuffed animals 
• jelly shoes. 

You will not be PrncesGrl0 forever. Before I say anything else though, WHAT ON EARTH WERE YOU THINKING WITH THAT AOL INTANT MESSENGER SCREEN NAME. Did you REALLY think you were going to be Prince William's Girl? Also what a contradictory message you were sending. On the one hand, you were calling yourself Prince William's Girl, but on the other hand you then referred to yourself as as Zero. Well, THANKFULLY for you, PrncesGrl0 dies along with aol instant messenger. However, you keep the screen name til past your 21st birthday, which is appalling. 

Secondly, on the PrincesGrl0 point: remember that boy from the all boy's catholic school you and your friend started messaging under the alias PrincesGrl0? And remember how you then made some sort of clandestine plan to meet up with him behind the DJ Booth at a school dance? And remember how he came up to you and asked, "Are you Princess Girl?" and you literally ran away from him? Well THAT GUY? He's probably married now. With kids. Probably some sort of surgeon. Who owns a home. And you want to know what you did tonight? You watched tv alone in your apartment while drinking a gin and tonic out of your only clean glass (champagne flute), while wearing a floor length silk robe you stole from your mother. So I guess it's safe to say he had the last laugh.  

Well, much like you trying to run a mile in PE class, I'm going to go ahead and give up after 10 yards. Rest up. Tomorrow in Freshman English class you (the future British Literature major specializing in post colonial works) are going to have to give that book presentation to your class on the following groundbreaking work of literary genius: Stephen King's Cujo.  Yes. The horror novel about the rabid dog. And you chose that book. More than that, you had to petition to your teacher why you should be allowed to do a report on that book and not, like, Catcher in the Rye. Now that I think about it, no wonder you don't like animals as an adult. Also, why were you such a weirdo?? Doing a Freshman english project about a human killing dog? Although, who knows, in 15 years from now, I might be thinking to myself, "why were you such a weirdo? Blogging on the internet about how much cheese you ate?"