Post-Grad Reflections: 15 Tips to My Younger Self
1. When a white boy from your 1st grade elementary class says that they don’t find Asian girls attractive, don’t take it personally. Remember that your ethnicity and the beautiful culture it entails is your strength, not your weakness.
2. When someone in 2nd grade makes fun of you for having thick hair… everywhere, remember that God blessed you with luscious locks that will stay luscious even when you’re 80.
3. Having a first crush can be daunting, especially when he sits next to you in 4th grade, but please do not let it ruin your friendship with your best friend. Resentment is just the ugliest form of insecurity, and not talking to her because she talked to him too is cheap.
4. Older girls in 8th grade are intimidating, I get it. They wear skinny jeans, even have their ears pierced. But don’t for a second compromise yourself just to be like them…
5. … especially when you wore a pretty pink dress on Easter, only for you to declare it “really stupid” in front of them. Your mom bought you that dress, Anna. How meaningless is their opinion now.
6. When you first move to a new city hundreds of miles away in 6th grade, be confident. You are a little awkward, lanky, quiet, but be confident in yourself too! You were handcrafted by the Creator Himself, and dare I say that He gave you a great sense of humor.
7. On that note, don’t let your need for God go. You will cling to Him for the first few years of absolute loneliness in middle school, and He will respond with blessings of new church friends and an indescribable weight of love. But you will grow to replace Him with your new friends, and take His secure love for granted. Keep it, cherish it.
8. The first time you truly hate yourself is in 9th grade, when you realize for the first time that your best friend is thinner than you, shorter than you, prettier than you, “quirkier” than you. She talks to older boys, dates them, rejects them. She isn’t even one person, just an accumulation of everything you’re not, and you find it in all your friends.
9. Remember that loathing yourself is a direct contradiction to God. Each time you curse your reflection or wish you were her, you directly dismiss all of God’s actions for you. You were “fearfully and wonderfully made”, don’t you remember? Jesus died on the cross for you, or have you forgotten?
10. But also please remember that your worth does not come from ANYTHING else than the sheer truth that God sees you as worthy. You aren’t better because more boys like you, and you aren’t a better christian because you don’t have a boyfriend either.
11. “Boring” will be labeled onto you your senior year of highschool. What ends up happening is someone will say it, and others will agree. You’ll spiral, (already so fragile), and ask your dad to buy you self-help books. You’ll internalize it (even if it might not be true), and you’ll carry it into college where you’ll always try a LITTLE harder to be more social, and you’ll be so disappointed when people won’t choose to hang out with you anyways.
12. But your sophomore year of college is also when you’ll embrace yourself. Perhaps alittle too hard, but you’ll feel free for the first time in a while. “Singleness is a blessing from God!” you’ll chant to yourself like a mantra. In some ways, it’s a defense mechanism, shunning all ideas of romance away and embracing singleness SO hard so that not even the tiniest thought of loneliness can penetrate.
13. But then you’ll like someone, and crash harder than before. All this hard work wasted, and you’ll hate yourself more, but this time not only in how you look, but who you are. Suddenly your whole being is not good, and certainly not enough for this person. They deserve better, they deserve her, and you will end up very confused. On one hand you resent all love, and on the other you need it, and you hate yourself for needing it too.
14. You’ll slowly get better, in no small part because of the continuous prayer to “see me the way You see me” (my new mantra), but later it will actually be a wedding that will set your eyes on God’s vision for love. You’ll see them vow to honor each other at the altar, and then fall to their knees to vow to honor God with their marriage. You’ll scare yourself by shedding tears in the pews even though you don’t know them that well, and only later will you realize that the Holy Spirit was challenging you to not get swept up in your own draining twisted feelings of love, but to seek to understand God’s perfect and holy vision for love.
15. Lastly Anna, give yourself grace. Singleness is hard enough, and advocating for it is even harder, especially in an age where relationships personal and on TV get scrutinized, idealized, and perpetuated to death. There will be times when you’ll feel low about yourself, wish you were better, and feel jealous towards every girl you meet. There will also be times when you look down on all couples, think of them all as weak, and begrudge them to death. But both aren’t healthy, and more importantly, neither speak truth about God’s blueprint for love and His feelings towards you. Continue to be fervent in your pursuit to find out God’s definition for love, but also forgive yourself when you aren’t. Life is not a kind journey but it is a growth inspiring one. You still have so much to learn, so I can’t wait to see the woman you become another 21 years later.
about anna lu
Anna is a recent UT grad and sg coordinator of AACM. She loves pop culture and is an avid Typeracer.
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