Dear 11 Years Old Self

I thought it would be interesting to write a letter to myself at age 11 (I just chose a random age). If you want to write a letter to your past self, you can choose any age that you want to. 

Dear 11 years old Amanda,

I hate to say this but be prepared for some hard times that lay ahead. You friends will gain against you in high school, but you form a new friendship with them after a few years and you all decided to leave the past in the past.  Your mom will be diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease the summer before your sophomore year and that will be a hard thing for you to get used to as she is unable to do a bunch of things that she used to be able to like drive, have legible handwriting and more. Then in your early 20's, your parents will get divorced which really you won't be surprised about as your older brothers and yourself expected it to happen in earlier years, 

Now, the topic of guys and relationships. I can only see so much into the future but your heart will get broken more than once, more than twice, etc. Your first boyfriend will try to make you go to the next step in the relationship and you declined which led to him breaking up with you over text and telling his family a whole different story about the reason why he broke things off. You soon found out after that he has a temper!  You will get engaged to a different boyfriend and the year (actually the month) that you were going to get married, he calls it off, saying his feelings "changed". You will d-find out soon after that he was talking to another girl behind your back.  There will three boyfriends after him,  Then you find a great boyfriend and you end up moving in with him due to personal circumstances at the time. After 4 months,he tells you that he accepted a new career and that you would basically have to go back home for a month due to seeing how everything up there went. After a few days after he won't respond to any communication, you find out that there was never a new job but there was a new girl that he has been seeing for more than just a few weeks. He pretty much ditched you and lied to you face. You were once again cheated on! That was hard for you to deal with. You wondered what was wrong with you that another guy decided to cheat on you. You then started to think positive and that there is a guy out there who is 150%  better than him and that he will treat you like a man should.  Currently, you are still single but you have a crush (actually a big crush) on a guy   that you have been talking to and hanged out with.Great news: he thinks you two are on a good start! Keep being you because he sure seem like he likes you for you.

You will decide to go to an online college and fulfill your dream of early childhood development. You will graduate with your associate's degree and even though it will take you an extra couple of months to complete, you'll go onto your bachelor's degree. Great job being on the Dean's and President's Lists. You will be a great example to all of the kids you help in your future career.

Love, Yourself

What would you tell your younger self?

<3 Amanda  

A Letter To A Teacher Who Left Us Too Soon(BEDM Day 23)

Dear Abbey,

You sadly left us this past November. They said that it was brain tumor caught too late and that you thought you were just having a really bad migraine. When I read a Facebook status that a former classmate wrote on Facebook the Friday you passed away, I just lost it and I didn't want to believe that you were gone.I had you for science in 7th grade and you helped me so much. I was shy back then and didn't feel confident enough to present a project in front of the whole class so you let me present it in font of you and two classmates. You saw that I was nervous and didn't feel confident enough so you didn't make me present it in front of the whole class. To this day, I still appreciate that because it showed me that you cared about me.

Even after I moved onto high school,you still cared about me. Whenever I would email you and update you on something, you would tell me good job. That meant so much to me. You were one of the teachers who impacted me and inspired me to go in the education field to give back what you gave me and that was encouragement, support and just the feeling that you cared about me and wanted me to succeed.

I know that if you were still here today, you would tell me that you're proud of me.You would tell me how proud you are of me that I'm in college and going for my goals. You would be proud of me that I graduated with my Associate's Degree in early childhood development last year and that I'm not stopping there. I'll be honest, bachelor's year is stressful and some courses and/or assignments are harder than others.There has been times when I look at the discussion question and ask myself if I can do this but then I remember I have a mentor looking down on me and telling me that I can do this and that she's proud of me. I miss you, Abbey!

From: A former student

<3 Amanda