2nd Installment of the Dear Thirteen Year Olds Series, by Guest Author, Alicia Lozano.

Dear Thirteen Year Olds,     

      

“Who are you?” It’s a question I’m sure you’ve all heard at some point in your life. It’s a fairly simple question, but not always easy to answer. You may be at a point in your life where you feel you know who you are, or you have no clue who you are. 

Now is the time you are beginning to discover what “Who are you?” really means to you. It is a time that will bring some of your best of times and what may seem as some of your hardest times. Trust me when I say, there will be times in your life when you feel like nothing is right and everything is wrong. There will be times when you want nothing more than to be loved, you’ll want to be “the one” and it feels as if nothing else would feel better than to be picked, picked by the popular girls or by that cute boy in your English class. There will be times when you feel as if your world is crashing down right before your eyes and it seems as if your world is coming to an end, and you know what, we all have been there. Inside all of us is that thirteen year old who once wanted to be loved and picked, inside all of us is that same thirteen year old who has felt the excitement that comes with being a teenager and the pain of that first heartbreak. If there is one piece of advice I can give you, it would be to learn to love yourself. It may sound cheesy, however, it’s the truth.

I have only been on this earth for two decades. I have had plenty of time to learn about myself and I still have so much more to learn. The one lesson I have taken with me throughout my life is learning how to love myself.  Not just simply loving myself, but being able to love myself without looking outside of me to feel loved. To some this comes as a second nature, but to other women like myself, you may find it becomes a reoccurring theme as you go through life. It’s hard because we have so many outside pressures to look a certain way or to be a certain way that we find ourselves changing to fit these molds that have been created for us. It is only recently that I have been able to step back and really look at this concept. I may not be the fastest or the smartest. I am not the tallest or the thinnest. No, I'm not any of those things. However, there is one thing that I am the best at and that’s being me!

I can tell you one thing, there is no one out there who will be a better me than I am, and as long as I can be the best me that I can, I know nothing can touch me. This is the same advice I give to you. Be the best you that you can possibly be and no one will be able to tell you you’re doing that wrong.  

The way I see it, in life you will have your ups and downs, however, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that life may not always give us what we want, however, it doesn't give us more than we can handle. 

Take care of you!

Alicia