AN OPEN LETTER TO MY THIRTEEN YEAR OLD SELF

[Dress gifted to me by Esprlia]

Dear Mollie,

Hi, it's me – your older self. I'm nine years older, wiser and still completely single. 

You've just turned thirteen and you're about to start high school and you're so so excited to be going to 'big school'. It's going to be a rollercoaster, so hold on tight. High school won't be easy – you'll want to be popular, you'll try to be popular and you'll want to fit it. Mollie, my love, you'll never fit in – so please stop trying. You are so unique, so different, so magnificent and you don't need to fit in.. please just be you, unapologetically you. Oh, and please don't worry what other people think about you.. you're not even going to remember them in 5 years time because you'd have moved house twice.

High school will have some great times, but first you're going to have to sit on your own in the playground and eat your lunch in the rain. You have to go through this because it will make you stronger.. I promise you, you'll get through it. Your mum will always be there for you and she'll talk to you on the phone every single break time.

Your school attendance will fall below 70%, you're going to bunk off of P.E. multiple times and you'll probably cry a lot because you've not got a solid group of friends yet.. but hang on in there.

You'll make a couple of special friends at high school, please don't fall out of touch with them. Stay in touch and please restrain from blocking them on social media. You'll probably end up blocking and unblocking people multiple times – why? Because you're too soft and you'll always make a mends. It's okay to block the horrible people, the people that make you sad and the people that don't include you – in fact DO block them and please DON'T try and make a mends with them people.. ever.

Not too long from now and you'll be obsessed with a certain boyband. Please cherish this era of your life because it will be one of the times that you'll look back on with great fondness. You're going to become obsessed with twitter, you're going to make amazing friends online, you're going to go to concerts and cry over five teenage boys, and you're going to be disappointed when you don't get to meet them. Mollie, you won't ever meet them but that's okay!

You'll go on a cruise with your nan and it will be the most amazing trip EVER... even more amazing than the trip you took with your auntie to Dubai. While cruising the Mediterranean at fourteen, you'll end up crushing on a boy onboard. You'll even write your Facebook URL on a napkin and ask the waiter to give it to him on the very last night at the midnight buffet.

When you get home from the Mediterranean, you'll realise that there's more to life than high school. You'll be desperate to move area and get away from everyone that no longer deserves a place in your life.. and that's what you'll do, you'll pack up your life and move... three times.

You're going to fall in love with an album, RED by Taylor Swift. You're going to become a hopeless romantic, you're going to listen to 'All Too Well' a million and one times and you're going to obsess over every love song that she's ever written and will ever write. 

You and mummy will move in with nanny and you're going to have a right 'ole laugh while you look for somewhere new to live. You'll then decide on Maidstone, live there for five weeks and then move again. You end up back at nanny's and the three of you have no clue what's going to happen next.

You're going to endure the worst pain you've ever experienced, you'll be rolling on the floor crying and the paramedics will come. But don't worry – it will be fine. In six months time you'll get diagnosed with gallstones.. but don't worry about it yet.

You all decide that Brighton sounds like the best option but it's too expensive, so you settle for Eastbourne and you move to Eastbourne in the June of 2013, three months before your sixteenth birthday.

You're going to have your gallbladder removed, you're going to see your favourite boyband perform for the last time and you're going to start college. You're going to adopt your uncle's cat, you're going to get a designer handbag and then you're going to finally know what you want to do with your life.

Fashion will become your everything and fashion journalism is all you will ever think about from the age of sixteen onwards. You'll start a blog when you're sixteen and it will be the best thing you've ever done. If you can start it before the age of 16, feel free to, you definitely won't regret it and who knows what doors it could open.. I really wish I had started blogging long before 16.

Your blog will grow and grow, you'll graduate college with D*D*D* and guess what? You'll get into university. I know this is something that you've never had an interest in, but darling – your nanny was ALWAYS right. University was never on your radar.. you're going to be the underdog and you're going to do SO well.

13-year-old Mollie... it's me, well, it's you – you're one-week-away-from-being-22-years-old now and you're doing better than you ever was. There's been bumps in the road of course.. homelessness, depression, anxiety and SO much more. But YOU'RE STILL STANDING, YOU'RE STILL SLAYING AND YOU'RE AMAZING! Obviously I've not shared every tiny detail about the next nine or so years of your life.. but let me just tell you – you're strong, you've got this and never forget how beautiful life is and how lucky you are to be alive.

Steal Mollie's Style

I'm wearing a STUNNING gifted dress from Esprlia – it's the V-Neck Belted Button Dress. I'm wearing the 2XL which fits me perfectly and I range from size 16–18!