Womxn// 15 Things I Would Tell My 15-Year-Old Self.
By Chloe De Lullington
21 March 2021
There was a tweet doing the rounds recently, asking “what did you look like ten years ago?” This elicited all the usual self-deprecating replies featuring what we would now call “questionable fashion choices” and kids throwing gang signs into cheap webcams, and as I scrolled idly through, it dawned on me that ten years ago I was 15 years old.
It sounds silly, but the jump from then to now had more or less crept up on me, and although some aspects of my teenager-hood are fuzzy round the edges (probably self-preservation, protecting me from the memories of the more bizarre, embarrassing stuff I definitely did) I still remember with stark clarity how it felt to be 15. I couldn’t do it all again – today’s teenagers are simultaneously tougher and more vulnerable than teens before them, dreaming bigger but with obstacles stacked against them from an even younger age – but at the time, it sometimes felt like I couldn’t do it then, either.
Here’s 15 things I would tell my 15-year-old self.
Believe it or not, there will come a time when skinny jeans are not in fashion anymore – don’t mourn them too much, because by that time your thighs will be magnificent and won’t fit comfortably into them anyway. Also, by this point, your charity shopping will be a lifestyle choice, not a financial necessity; your friends will actively celebrate your thriftiness (and you will still wear the black jacket your parents bought you a few years ago).
That boy you spend free periods eyeballing and going silly if he speaks to you – you don’t know it, but he follows you down the corridor looking at your bum because he fancies you too, and both of you are too entrenched in secondary school hierarchy and cliques to do anything about it. Give it a couple of years and you’ll be boyfriend and girlfriend…
…and promptly break up when you get to university, but it will be an affirming and wonderful first relationship and you won’t regret it. For the first time, you will feel like a “real person” who exists in someone else’s life as a romantic prospect, which right now I know seems an unlikely notion. Relish every moment, even the sad ones.
Speaking of university – yes, you will go. Not Cambridge, like you’ve convinced yourself from reading all those posh old writers over and over again (the first year, they turn you down. The second, you turn them down) but one that ticks all your boxes and throws you into the path of some of the most amazing people you’ve met thus far.
Right now, you’re itching to dye your hair darker and have repeatedly told anyone who will listen that you’ll never go blonde. That is internalised misogyny and also a lie, because just before uni, you will hit the (peroxide) bottle and never look back.
You have a peculiar habit of following boys around and not talking to them. Cut that out – we could argue it’s a satirical, subversive, feminist act, a commentary on how most stalkers are men pursuing women, but we both know it’s just downright weird, and not that deep. Learn to talk to them and don’t be scared of flirting – your disdain for women who flirt is also internalised misogyny.
That young adult novel you’re convinced is going to be the next big thing will LITERALLY end up in the bin; you will leave it on the backseat of the car and your parents will go to the tip and accidentally chuck it in with all the old furniture and garden waste. It is without doubt the best thing to happen to both you and the novel, because neither of you are ready for any form of external critique.
Dark, bushy eyebrows will come back into fashion. By then, however, you will have already plucked yours a little too much, and will spend years overcompensating with a pencil and looking like Ugly Betty. Make peace with it. They grow back – slowly.
Your scathing dislike for anything your parents watch will turn into an ironic nostalgia – you might loudly complain every time there’s a re-run of The Professionals on ITV4, but when you get kittens you will straight up call them Bodie and Doyle, aka The Purrfessionals, and find it hilarious even though nobody under the age of 50 will get it.
There is a boy out there who is as avid a PG Wodehouse fan as you – more so, in fact. You will meet him, be absolutely furious to realise you’ve fallen in love, and settle into romantic, domestic bliss together (see point 9: cats). You will, however, never see eye to eye on Jeeves/Wooster fanfiction, and that’s ok.
Your current best friend is still your best friend a decade into the future. This is to your advantage for many reasons, but primarily because she holds a lot of potential blackmail material over you from your Tumblr years. (You’ve really got to stop with the Tumblr stuff.)
The whole not-eating thing… not cool. It’s not normal to wear the same t-shirt now as you did when you were eight, stop using that as a badge of honour. You won’t be totally at peace bodily in ten years’ time (more’s the pity) but bums and curves will have come back into vogue (such is the fickleness of fashion) so you’ll at least have the comfort of external validation (although there’s no difference in the amount of catcalls you get as a skinny teenager or an hourglass twentysomething. Yeah, depressing.)
The comedy writer whose radio sitcom you can’t go to school without remains incredibly funny in the future – you meet him briefly in your twenties, and are promptly struck dumb because nothing you can say about how much he meant to you would be A) enough or B) not creepy. (But you might want to ease off on being a Graham Linehan fan.)
There will be a pandemic that basically closes the whole country down. You will go roughly a year and a half without seeing your family or friends in person – but in this time you will be locked down with your boyfriend and your cats and reach unprecedented realms of love and appreciation; you will also reconnect with people from your past and become annoyingly reflective about life and the universe. It remains to be seen if this introspective attitude remains once the pubs and clubs reopen.
Ten years from now, you will still round off your day with an entry in your diary, and moreover, you will actually get paid for writing! As a job! There’s no sign of that glittering creative writing career yet, but let’s be real – you and I might not be ready for that yet. Let’s see how we go – we’ll check in with 35-year-old Chloe later on, eh?
Chloe de Lullington is a writer and lifelong thrifter, interested in the repurposing of clothes and culture in contemporary life. Originally from Kent, she gained a First Class degree in English Literature and Film and Theatre from the University of Reading and now lives in Shropshire.