Dear Me......

(Dear Me is an idea inspired by a book entitled, Dear Me - A Letter to My Sixteen Year Old Self, edited by Joseph Galliano, published by Simon & Schuster in which celebrities give advice to their teenage selves. Here is my letter.)

Let me start off by telling you that your life now is no reflection of how your life will turn out. For all of your brooding it will never reflect what is going to happen to you. So all the countless hours you spend dreaming of your future and how it will turn out is nothing in comparison to how good it will be. It is so much better than you could ever dream and dream you do my girl, dream you do. Still you need to know the truth first off and it's going to be brutal. I know that once this is out of the way and you see reason you will understand it is just the way life is and being reasonable is something you are very good at.

First of all, you will never marry Peter Kapusi! Harsh aren't I?. Secondly you will also never marry Dave Gahan, Morten Harket or Julian Lennon. Sorry but the amount of hours you wile away on them will amount to nothing except for the fact it teaches you valuable lessons which is always a good thing, right? So now that is out of the way and you have finished crying yourself into a stupor and emerged from your cupboard you can find out the good stuff.

You will travel the world my dear ending up in far reaching places not least of all Iceland and Japan! I know Iceland, you probably don't even know where that is right now, so look it up because you are going there. You will live in the motherland of England and the United States ta boot, imagine that, you can't can you? You will watch hot mud boil in New Zealand and make your husband, yes you get married! bathe in thermal mud, though he complains about it endlessly, the mud, not the marriage. You will wonder the streets of Paris and dance the night away in New York. Oh and not to mention dips in the Adriatic sea, Chinese food in Hong Kong and relaxing massages in Fiji, and you think you won't get as far as Budgewoi. Boy are you in for a treat, oh and expect it all to be done in Business Class, you marry well my dear, you marry well.

If the travel isn't enough for you well you end up meeting every musical hero you ever dreamt of. Ready! Okay! You will attend after show parties with Depeche Mode in Los Angles, yes that is right my girl sipping champagne with the lads at the Hollywood Bowl, if you don't mind. You will meet Tony Bennett and have his driver drive you back to your hotel in L.A, yes L.A. You spend an afternoon chewing the fat with Iva Davies and you chat up Howard Jones, not to mention bumping literally into Prince. Oh and I have saved the best till last. You kiss Billy Idol, on the lips!! Gasp! Yes, let me reiterate, a proper kiss on the lips. See things aren't too shabby at this point huh?.

But what about the rest! Well you will start working in a place at the age of 19 that is so unusual and different that there is no way of explaining it to you at 16, even though it is only three years away. Suffice to say that the people you meet through this experience are without doubt the most vibrant, amazing, creative, intelligent and crazy bunch that exist on the planet. You don't feel you fit in at the moment but by the time you are 21 you will be the toast of the town let me assure you. The people you surround yourself with will lead you out of your darkness and into a whole new way of life and the lessons they teach you turn you into a strong, confident and vibrant young woman who doesn't take any shit from anyone. You will work hard, but you will be rewarded and working hard is something you are never afraid of.

Okay Okay I know you are salivating to find out who you will marry. Well my dear you already know him. He is in your life everyday and it turns out that he will eventually spend every other day of your life with you as well. You manage to get it together in New York of all places but there are some hurdles to jump before he finally leaps and you are happy to go with the flow. It also has something to do with you being patient and reasonable oh and he is as well. Once you are together he is the love of your life, your partner, your friend and someone who is able to be with you in your darkest hour and your finest hour and always respects you for who you are. A rare trait in many people. So if you tell him that he is cute occasionally and scratch his back he is like an old dog, loyal, loving and dependable. And no it isn't Peter Kapusi - Get over it!

You will have two children, yes two! Don't panic, you don't have them until after you have travelled, eaten out at a bazillion restaurants, partied like it was 1999 for many many years before and after 1999 and finally found that if you didn't have a child then there wasn't much more trouble you could find for yourself so you add two people who can do that for you. The big surprise is that no you are not having boys. It will be girls, girls, girls. They are funny and cute and you will love them more than you could have ever expected and they will love you so much it will make your heart heal.

As for your friends, well what you see is what you get. Once you make a friend they are for life. You always have an abundance of friends and there are a few who fall by the wayside but it isn't for want of you trying. So 99% of the friends you have now will still be by your side in another 23 years and they don't appear to be going anywhere soon.

As for work well you will be earning more money than you can poke a stick at but it takes a while and you will toil in dead end jobs for a while I'm afraid but that will eventually change. In the end you will be the topper most of the popper most and it will come when you least expect it.

So where will you live?. Well you will eventually own your own home. Strange concept isn't it?. In fact if you are smart with your money, and let's face it you are not little miss spend thrift you may even end up with more than one. Let me just put the location down as a place that you have always wanted to live and leave it as a surprise because frankly you need something to keep you brooding and sitting in your cupboard listening to Depeche Mode it's what makes your teenage years so memorable and your skin so palid.

You learn young that your life is only going to be good if you make it that way. Nobody will help you, only you. So you make the most of your life my dear, you really do. At the moment your life is nothing short of fucken horrible. You feel rejected and tortured for who you are, who you want to be and who you want to be with. It won't take long for this to change and the lessons of loneliness and exile you feel will help you be compassionate, honest and tolerant of all people no matter who they are and no matter where they come from. So in the end you will be many things to many people an artists muse, a mother, a best friend, a lover and a fighter all in good time. You won't always sit in your bedroom listening to the same album over and over wishing your life away eventually you get out and actually make one of your own.

Happy Trails...........