I’m a big country music fan.  Last night as I was making the drive from Pittsburgh to Baltimore, I listened to a song I’ve heard a million times before, but this time it got me thinking.  The song is called Letter to Me, and it is by Brad Paisley.  In the song he talks about all the things he would tell himself if he could write a letter to his 17 year old self.

It got me thinking about what I would write to my 17 year old self.  It may only be 7 years ago, but a lot has changed since then.  This is what I came up with.

1.  Just be you.  It’s who you do best.  If you feel like you have to be someone different around certain people for them to accept you, they aren’t worth your time.  The people who love you the best are the ones who love you for you.

2.  Cut your hair.  Seriously, it has gotten out of hand and you’ll love short hair so much more.  Hair down to your butt is not really attractive.

3.  Don’t worry so much about guys.  You’re constantly on the lookout for potential boyfriends, and you find that the whole process is nothing but frustrating.  That’s because you’re too young and by not dating the wrong guys, you won’t end up with your heart broken.  Eventually you’ll meet that one right guy, and then it will just happen naturally.

4.  Your parents are right far more often than you think.  Listen to them, they are actually really smart.  (Yes mom and dad, I actually think this – whether you think I do or not!)

That’s my list.  Let’s make this one an interactive one.  If you could write a letter to yourself at the age of 17, what would you say?

This is an awesome post from The Tipping Glass

A Letter to Me

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I was not an early adopter of social networks.  My school, being a smaller school, did not get Facebook as early as many others, and when our school was accepted as one of the schools in the network, I saw no reason to join.  It wasn’t until my roommate insisted that she would not go to dinner with me again unless I joined when I finally gave in.

I have always been a social person, but keeping up with people through, e-mail, letters and phone calls makes it so that, if someone is far away, you have to put forth a large amount of effort to know what is going on in that friend’s life.  When it comes down to it, you have to choose to not know what’s going on with certain people – and when you happen to see them in the grocery store 5 years later, don’t be surprised when they are married with three children.

Facebook has changed all that.  Now, I can have a bird’s eye view into the lives of so many people with whom I could never keep in touch – or now how to find – without Facebook.  For example, I had a great friend in second grade.  She and I were very close, but when I left the school to be homeschooled and she moved to North Carolina we lost touch.  Through Facebook we are now back in touch, and I know that today she is thinking, “where the weekend went…oh that’s right, work ate it.”

Not only is Facebook helpful in keeping up with folks you wouldn’t otherwise have contact with, it is also helpful in relationships with people you see or talk to all the time.  By uploading my wedding pictures to Facebook, I was able to share those pictures with all my close friends – otherwise I would have had to send them copies of the pictures, and there’s no way they would see most of them.  And my mom no longer bugs me to send her pictures of random events – she can just see them on Facebook.  I just looked through pictures of my cousin Charlie, who I’ve never met, and he is a fantastic looking little boy.

From this post you can probably tell that I only use Facebook.  I have a MySpace account, but I check that once a month at best.  I’m not ready to join the Twitter cult, but I think I may have just convinced myself through this post that it might be a good idea.  We’ll see.

What I’m saying is, if you’re holding back from the Social Networking world because you’re afraid of getting sucked in, ask yourself, would getting sucked in really be that bad?

This is an awesome post from The Tipping Glass

The Cool Kids are all on Facebook!

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I have come to the realization with many of my friends that our friendship simply was meant to be.  If  that was not the case, there is no way we would be friends today.

Here are a few examples:

Joshy.  Also a writer for the Tipping Glass, Josh and I met in September 2005.  The only thing is, he does not remember that meeting.  He was so focused on some other chick that the fact that I even existed escaped him.  It wasn’t until about three months later that we began to get to know one another, and when his midnight phone call was the only redeeming factor about my launch into 2006 – a year which became one of the best of my life – we became great friends and have been ever since.

Sarah.  My brother hooked Sarah and I up as roommates for my senior year of college.  Our first meeting was pretty much the most awkward situation I have ever experienced.  We both thought we were going to be miserable, but there was no way out.  Every conversation we had for a whole summer was torture.  Then, after no more than 48 hours living together, we realized that our mutual awkwardness was actually the catalyst which would catapult us into a kind of friendship we had never experienced.

Ben.  I can count at least 3 if not 4 very awkward and strange situations Ben and I experienced together before we became friends.  From a conversation where neither of us remembered the other one but we both thought the other one knew us, to a long and strange dance at Ghostriders, most would say we would never be friends.  One conversation turned it all around, and after that – until I met my husband, I’m pretty sure everyone we knew thought we were dating.

Brittany.  She was to be one of my roommates freshman year, and we both thought that the third, Kathryn, was going to be awesome but we were sure that we would hate each other.  The first day of school revealed that we were dead wrong – Brittany and I hit it off immediately, and Kathryn was a bit on the strange side.  Neither of us have heard from Kathryn (whose initials happened to be KKK) since she moved out two weeks into the semester, but Brittany sang at my wedding.

So, the moral of the story is, don’t assume that your first impression about someone is correct.  Sometimes friendships blossom rather than hit you square in the nose.

This is an awesome post from The Tipping Glass

It was meant to be!

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