One Thing I Wish I Told 16-year-old Me (And now I'm travelling back in time to tell you)

If you're still not sure what my story is about, let me tell you – it's not a weight loss story, it's not a 'I now appreciate who I am as a person, I was beautiful all along' tale, or the 'I wasted my time with horrible guys and now I'm happy to be single' story either.

Because the people that wrote those stories ended up gaining back the weight, they returned to the self-deprecating act of calling themselves ugly, and the 'I'm over dating assholes' women returned to dating the assholes, but with a fresh wardrobe and a new hairstyle copied from People magazine.

I'm not at the start of my journey nor am I close to the end;

I'm living it as it's happening; trying to heal in the midst of it all, which is why I can see the smaller, more important things that we tend to forget when we retell our story years from now;

I may only remember the happiest times or the worst and will forget what happened in between.

This book is my contingency, so I won't forget the small things that mattered.

Many micro factors play into why a woman is the woman she is today. To the underwear she wears, to the books she reads, to neighbourhood she's raised in, to the style of music she listens to.

One self-love story doesn't encompass her whole story; you can't understand the Universe if you only study the Earth.  

It's difficult to find a book that mentions the micro levels of being a teenager,

the stuff we don't see as a big deal until we've matured a bit;

they're the small things that build up inside of us and we don't realize they're the source of our faults until it's too late and we're spiralling and thinking about throwing ourselves out of a moving car.

I call those special moments mental breakdowns. Healthy people without problems call them spiritual awakenings. I mean, the only spiritual thing about it is me repeating 'holy fuck' after I've cried my eyes out and wondered what's wrong with me. Then - yeah, I guess we can call it a spiritual awakening.

These spiritual awakenings happen when there have been things piling on my plate, and since we're taught to be gritty and tolerable, I tell myself I'm fine and that this is normal:

'Suck it up, princess. Life gets rough sometimes'.

The contributors to these spiritual awakenings are the small things we don't hear often enough in casual conversation, which is why we think we're the only ones going through certain problems. 

Like how to deal with dad when he doesn't like you wearing makeup, or how you keep your hair down all the time because it hides more of your acne,

Or the fears of virginity and troubles of sex.

Teenagers don't openly talk about that or how they feel (Chicken Noodle Soup for the Soul is just a bit out of date, don't you think?).

That's why this isn't a success story;

This is a true story – one where I am broken; I feel less of a woman due to unfortunate events, and now I write to heal myself and find my voice again.

I don't want sympathy or to be called brave for sharing my story.

This is my way of reaching out to you,

my younger self,

my future children,

and other lost young girls,

and hoping my story connects to you in way that won't heal you but will enlighten you and hopefully give you more tools to put in your pocket, which you can use when it's YOU v.s. this ugly f-ed up world (#dailygrind).

Believe me – becoming an adult doesn't mean you're smarter and richer and therefore, have less problems.

It only gets harder, but it also comes with more chances to pick yourself back up and practice resilience, discipline, and craft more tools you can put in your pocket.

For almost 20 years, I've been overthinking, micro-analyzing my life, and setting expectations only to be let down.

After years of comparison to other women who I thought were more successful, a sick unnerving feeling in my stomach finally surfaced. 

I confronted the reality that since the age of nine, I have an obsession of wanting to be pretty. Laugh. Snort. Get it out of your system. 

Wanting to be pretty is a sickness; it's a vicious cycle. You want to be pretty, and once you're pretty, you still don't think you're pretty enough; you're chasing your own tail. 

I must sound so vain but when you hate the way you look, the body you were born in, the face you were given - it's a normal self-depreciating obsession to have.

And all it really took to come to terms with it was a toxic breakup, discovering my deep intentions behind the specific clothes I wore since the age of 9, and a male gynaecologist telling me that I could never have sex and that there was no magic bullet for my health issue.

Many other health concerns started popping up around this time, and I kept seeing different specialists for an array of things.

It was a time of self-reflection and a collection of 'How could I have not known that' and 'How did I let this happen' that hit me hard, and I now want to share it with you.

I'm sure my mom will ask, "Why are you confessing the most private parts of your life on the Internet? What will your boss think?"

Why be vulnerable? Well, I'm good at it. Plus:

1) I have this sick gut feeling that there are girls out there like me but have never talked about these things. I want you sisters to know you're not alone. We're on this sinking boat together – but I hope my story will encourage you to build a woman-made craft (screw man-made. Have you seen the Titanic?) and jump off while you can.

2) For the love of God, this is the book I wish I had when I was 12, 13, 14 and growing up until I was 19. This is the shit I wish I told my high-school self, and maybe – just maybe, I would've been able to reverse years of damage on my self-esteem, worth, and mentality.

You know, the ability to curve depression, self-destructive behaviour, save meaningless tears in the bathroom stall, avoid attempt of suicide and horrible guys and the lying to the people I still call my friends would be great. Timetravel, go!

This collection of honest thoughts you're about to read come in all forms of media; little notes; text, poetry, photos... all are raw and mean a lot to me.

I'm handing you a key to my home and allowing you to explore the walls that I have built, the dreams that collected dust overtime, the monsters under my bed that I can't chase away and observe the shelves of souvenirs and trinkets that I picked up along my past and current journeys. 

This is how I feel – these are my thoughts.

They're dark. They're funny. They're full of colourful swearing (Sorry, mom). And I will not be apologetic about any of this (Sorry - I'm not trying to give Canadians a bad rep here but...).

Now if Rick and Morty could hurry up with inventing time travel, I would go back in time to tell my high school self this small golden nugget:

There are particular things you dream of; materialistic; specific; you want to be taller, smarter, prettier, thinner; richer; more popular; in a relationship; the things that actually come from a place of insecurity—you do eventually get them. But you aren't any happier with them. For the love of God, focus on happiness instead of those specific things; they will come within time and it won't even matter when they do because the times you were the happiest were the unplanned moments.

They were the moments you never even dreamed of or thought could happen or even originally wanted; the universe's dying gift; life surprises made you smile the brightest and laugh the hardest so that every bone in your body felt it. Be present and cherish those kinds of memorable moments instead of trying to imagine or dream of them in the middle of the night.

Live the life you were blessed with because there's so much more to it than you think.

Trust the process. 

Sincerely, AZIA