A Letter to my 16 year old self....

“Your not a freak, your just a musician”

Dear 16 year old me,


Right now you feel completely alone, you have no friends and feel useless, awkward and in the way. THINGS WILL GET BETTER. They really will, in a very short time you will have more friends than you know what to do with and you will become something/someone truly great.


You are at the beginning of something that will take years for you to fully understand but I am going to start this letter by saying, trust me. Everything that you are about to experience will teach you to become something bigger, brighter, better, stronger and enrich you with a sense of freedom and love. But first some words of advice to help guide you on this journey.


Your not a freak, your not crazy and you certainly aren’t mentally ill. Your just different. Most people have felt that way at some point even if they don’t like to talk about it that much. It may take you years to come to terms with that but trust me, you will. You have many amazing gifts and you will eventually learn to work with them and THOUSANDS of people will come to you and ask for your guidance because of them. You have a gift, you really do, and you aren’t alone in that, there are other people like you out there and your about to meet some of them but trust your instincts, YOUR instincts. Some people who call themselves spiritual, aren’t. You will make your own path and you will do it very well.


Your creativity will help you more than you can understand right now so do your best to ignore EVERYTHING about finding a “proper” job. You’ll like that, yes, your future self is telling you to ignore your entire family, you do anyway, but at least you can stop beating yourself up about it now. You’ll eventually run your own business doing lots of different things so don’t waste any time trying to find the ONE thing your best at. Your ability to create music, art, poems and books will take you exactly where you need to go.


Your parents love you, yes, even your dad. You won’t see this for years, you’ll spend way too long convincing yourself that your not angry with them, but you are. Accept it. The second you accept it you can begin to let it go. Just try and trust me in knowing that each person on this earth loves you as much as they can, as much as they feel secure in loving you. It may not feel like enough at times but they really are doing their best. You will speak to your dad again. You’ll see him for who he really is and you’ll love him for it. He’s not a mean ogre who hurt your family. He’s hurting within himself and is living his own journey.


You’ll never shake your mother. She’ll get crazier with age and her passion for ridiculous hats will never stop. She will marry the man she’s seeing and they will be together for years. Try not to be angry with her, she DOES love you. It’s just time to accept that she has her own path to live and her own healing to do. You’ll spend many a morning chatting with her about stupid things and your more like her than you think. And the ridiculous opera she listens to when ironing, oh yes, you’ll end up listening to it too!


Make friends with your brother. He may already have lots of friends but that doesn’t mean he isn’t as lonely as you are. I think he could use your help and your guidance. He’s not as free as he seems. You may feel like a failure for not being able to be the big brother he wants but you are the big brother he has. He may not admit it but he needs you and you’ll regret it later if your not there for him.


You’ve thought about killing yourself a lot. Killing yourself is never the answer to anything. All you are feeling right now is incredibly lonely and sometimes it can feel overwhelming. It will pass. Your life WILL get better. But stop waiting for your life to get better, get out there and make it better. It’s not as impossible as it seems. Respect your life. It sounds cheesy and believe me it is, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Otherwise you’ll waste years wondering whether you want to be on this planet or not, and you do want to be here, you just don’t want to be lonely.


You are beautiful. You are beautiful. You are BEAUTIFUL. In every sense of the word. Stop hating how you look, stop wasting time starving yourself, hurting yourself and covering yourself up. Your body is gorgeous and will improve with age. SO many people feel what you are feeling right now but I also remember how it felt and no words can take you out of that place. You’ll have to walk it on your own but I can tell you that the day will come when you’ll look in the mirror and be happy. Ironically you actually don’t have that many issues about your image, you just don’t like becoming a man, you don’t like what it means to be a man. But you are going to become your own man, in your own life and do your own thing.







This may be a bit of a shock to you but, I should tell you, your gay. It’s not a phase. Really it isn’t. Your not bi-sexual. Your gay. Completely, completely gay. The older you get the more comfortable you’ll get with it. You’ll make many amazing friends through the gay scene, yes there is one in your small city and it is actually full of lovely friendly people. You aren’t alone in this. You’d be surprised how many people around you are gay, one by one they will come out to you. Your mum will be fine about it and BELIEVE me she knows.


And now a word about LOVE. You will meet somebody beautiful and fall in love with him. The kind of ridiculous head over heels-the hills are alive-sunshine on a rainy day-the only way is up, stupid type of love. Yes, the kind you’ve been searching for. You’ll have it. It wont last forever. You will get your heart broken and the pain will be indescribable but I need you to listen carefully to me on this next bit. You will learn that the way you deal with your first heartbreak will have a major impact on all future relationships. You will learn that this moment can change the way your life goes for a long time. If you need someone to blame (and you probably do) blame him, DON’T blame love. Don’t turn your back on love. PLEASE listen to me on this. DON’T BLAME LOVE ITSELF. Love didn’t hurt you. He did. If you turn your back on love you’ll spend the following ten years moving from one loveless relationship to the next. You’ll hurt yourself more than he ever did. Everyone around you is offering advice right now and all I can say is try not to listen. They are sharing their lessons, you are learning yours. You have already learned the value of loving other people, even if you haven’t learned a respect for that yet. What would be better for you right now is to learn the value of allowing yourself to be loved. Trust me it will benefit you a lot more in the long run.


Your imagination is your strength, your creativity is your strength, your sensitivity is your strength, NEVER forget that. You were born to live YOUR life. No one else’s. So, do your best to begin to let go of other people’s expectations of you. You’ll learn as you grow up that all the love, faith and strength you need exist in worlds inside you. You’ll seek them out one by one and live them.



Your future self loves you
Your not nuts
You just want to feel loved
And you will.



All my heart



Older Ryan xxxxx