Questions + Answers

from Alice

Hi Allison,

Here is my question for you:

With the wisdom and life experience that you’ve accumulated, what would you write in a letter to your teenage self?

Thanks for reviving the Q&A forum.

Have a lovely weekend!

Best,

Alice

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Hi Alice.

What a question. I can always count on you to contribute thoughtfully. Thank you.

If I could give advice to my teenage self as myself now? That’s heavy to think about. I dealt with a tremendous amount of trauma and baggage in my teenage years and I don’t think anyone, neither I nor the people around me, really understood the depth of it or that how I dealt with it then would affect my life for the rest of my life. So I might say to her things like:

• Learn more about what love really is before you think you’re in it. You have been deprived of the depth of love and understanding you needed and you won’t be able to tell the difference in good and not good because in some ways you just need attention and not to be alone. You don’t know what safety feels like so you will seek out the opposite in order to feel at home and know how to function, which is in chaos. True love is rare. Entanglement is common. You’re going to make painful mistake after painful mistake until you deal with what makes you feel so abandoned and unable to find peace on your own. You will stay in relationships that are wrong for you because you will always feel like you need to be in one, when the one you need is with yourself. The love you need is from your own heart. That’s a lot, but knowing that will save you so much heartache. However, the path is the path and you will understand it all in time.

• The situation you’ve been handed is not your fault. It’s going to be hard for you not to feel like an outsider for the rest of your life, but that isn’t what you are. The things that make you unique have nothing to do with tragedy. Figure out those things and make them your focus.

• Embrace your creativity wholeheartedly and search out who you really are artistically before you give into pressure from others to produce anything. Always be generous, but protect your assets, your intellectual property, and think long term. Ask yourself who’s running your show. You are far more powerful and valuable than you realize. Don’t give yourself away.

• Lonely comes and goes. Learn to ride the waves and cultivate preferring your own company.

• Save money.

• You’re going to figure it out eventually. You won’t believe the road you take. Buckle up.

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  Something like that, I think.

Thank you again for a great question. It gave me a lot to think about. Y’all have a great weekend.

Allison

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