Dear Sixteen Year Old RD - Let's Play Some Tag

I got this idea from Jonathan Ross. It's a letter to your sixteen year old self. What advice would you give, with what you know now, to the sixteen year old you?

It's also been a while since we had a good game of tag doing the rounds in the Lankanosphere, so I'll start and I'll make the rules.

They go like this:

Write a post, a letter to your sixteen year old self.

Tag two people, no more, none of the "I'll leave it as an open tag" or "I'll tag ten people because I love you all so much"

Run round your house naked.

Here's mine:


Dear sixteen year old RD,

Life is going to be quite an adventure for you. That much is for sure. The older you'll get the more you'll actually realise how much you don't know. Right now you think you know it all, at forty three you'll know a lot more and feel like you know nothing. You'll be amazed that you've got a fifteen, almost sixteen year old daughter who thinks she knows everything.

There's so much to tell you about what's to come but I don't want to give it all away. Let's start with the thing you think about for about ninety eight per cent of your waking hours; sex. You will have it eventually and it won't be with Debbie Harry. But that's okay, she's not going to age that well, nor will Pamela Ewing from Dallas.

You'll be surprised about sex. Right now it looks as though it's fun and something only other people do. Give it a few years and you'll be one of them and startled at the trouble people get into over it.

You may want to think about getting a haircut, some cleaner looking and less heavy rock clothes. All the other kids are into a more modern and new wave look and sound and you're hanging around with hippies. Get a bit trendy, it will help you with the whole sex thing for a start. And for heaven's sake shave that bloody pubic bumfluff off your face. That stuff your parents are saying about not shaving too soon is all rubbish and you'll look better for it.

You know the way you've always thought about playing the drums? Do it, do it now, go and get some lessons, it will be the one place in which you feel totally comfortable. Don't wait until you're thirty one to find that out. Do not even think about being a professional musician. You'll end up having lots of fun and making no money. Can there be anything worse?

Now let's talk about Sri Lanka. You like it now, you feel a certain affinity to it and want to go there more. That's nothing. Next year all hell's going to break loose in Lanka, lots of it whilst you're there. It will take over thirty years for peace to turn up and do its thing. Yet, during that thirty years, you're going to begin your affair with that little island. You're going to become connected to it in ways you can't imagine now. It will become more important to you than even those Debbie Harry posters on your ceiling. Seriously. Sinhala lessons might be a good idea too.

And while we're on the subject, you're going to have a blog and get quite interested in writing and reading. This may confuse you as you don't know what a blog is. It's a thing that people publish on the web. Ah yes, you don't know what the web is. Let's leave it for now, you'll find out.

Learn to cook RD, it will be useful.

Make mistakes, make lots and learn from them, that's the key. Perfection is only attained by people who don't push their boundaries.

Parents. Well your ones will get worse. You'll love them but they'll drive you mad. That's what parents do, Sri Lankan ones just do it even more. Then you'll observe yourself behaving towards your kids like your Dad does and did towards you. Let it go RD, that's what happens.

I think that's about it. Your life will be fun, you'll make it fun because of your choices and your actions and you'll go out and get things, not just from Tescos.

With my kindest regards

Your forty three year old friend

RD

My two tagged people are:

The Gyppo.
DD.

Now I have to go, it's cold with no clothes on.