"Once you turn 18, the first thing you are going to learn is how to drive.
You are going to ruin three cars. You’lll crash the first into a gate, bump the second into a pole and graze the third against a truck in the middle of the night then lie about it and get caught by your mother – who will graciously let you off the hook.
After each accident, you will silently vow to yourself that you will never – even under dire circumstances – ever drive again. But you will. Because life will eventually show you that it simply makes more sense to keep on going than it does to quit before the adventure begins.
You will become acquainted with loss but it will only be as tragic as it will be beautiful. You will lose touch with most of the people who will attend your 18th birthday party. Some you’ll lose by choice and some by circumstance. Each broken connection will pave the way for new people and new names and new memories and new friendships – and I know how much you love personal history but, trust me. The new will be so much better for you.
At 18, you’ll be so set in your ways. You’re going to think that 20 is old, that there is only one way to know God and only one way to be. You’re going to be so grossly convinced that the only kind of love story that lasts is the one where two people have known each other for more than five years. It is this pompous sureness of yours that will eventually ruin you. I can’t tell you how badly I want to invent a time machine right now just to tell you how sorely mistaken you will be if you continue thinking the way you do.
I wish you were open to the reality that there are infinite ways and infinite stories. There are wild cards and underdogs and people who will amaze you in ways you never thought possible. There is no formula to anything. Be open.
You’re going to spend your 18th year of life hoping that a certain guy will love you in big dramatic ways but he won’t. He never will. And it’ll take years for you to realize that there is beauty in that, too.
You will walk away from a friendship that you were absolutely resolute about keeping forever and it will be one of the biggest emotional struggles you will ever face. You like staying far too much – even when it hurts you – and the situation you’re going to find yourself in will demand that you leave right away.
But when you do, when you finally get one foot out the door, you will find all the different and wonderful sides of you that were hidden all those years behind that other person’s shadow. and it will be worth it.
At 18, somebody’s going to tell you to ‘please go and figure out your life already’. They’re going to push you into running when you were actually just meant to stroll. I hope you walk slowly. I hope you take your time. I hope you sit back, do your thing and simply let the pieces fall as they should.
Let me tell you a secret: at 23, you’re still not going to have this thing called Life figured out. Not even in the slightest. (And you know what? You’re actually going to be just fine with that.)
Once you turn 18, you’re going to learn how to drive yet different people are going to go and try to take the wheel from you. They’re going to tell you where to go and how to be and who to love and it is my prayer – now as a 23-year-old woman- that you tune them out completely. Don’t do life according to their standards, or so that you can appease their clamor for you to fit into a box, or so that you can settle into a mold that’s comfortable at best.
Dare to disturb the universe. Be brilliant, be exceptional and, best of all, do it for no one other than yourself."
