Note to 12-Year-Old Self

To My 12-Year-Old Self

At 45 you will be faced with a turning point in your career and life, but all of your life’s challenges until then mixed with all of the support of loved ones in your life will help you with this decision and life journey.

You will be a beautiful person no matter what size or shape you are. Your merit is not based on your appearance as much as it is based on your actions.

You will want to be an attorney, judge, politician, and eventually the first woman President. Your main goal is to change the world, but life happens and you will do this in other ways. Be open to those and realize that this journey is not a failure but a different kind of opportunity.

Schooling will be difficult and you have to work really hard, but in time you will find the content that you are passionate about and people who inspire you to learn. I know you are skeptical, but you will eventually love reading and learning so much that you will be a lifelong learner.

There will be a time in your life when you feel that it’s over. However, this will be a time of new beginnings. While you will suffer tremendous loss and lack direction, your family and a very dear friend will help you get through it. No matter how much divorce feels like an ending, you are so much stronger than you ever thought.

Your first teaching job and students pull you through this defeat and out of the deep, dark hole you were in, and it’s that moment that you learn that gratitude is the key to a happy life. By focusing on what’s right and the possibilities, you do open yourself up to love again. Take the risks; open up to possibilities. It is not only OK to move away and turn your life upside down, it is what you need.

You will further your education which will supported by a new love who supports you through teaching and pushes you into other aspirations--waking up your love of learning and leadership. You will be able to get through tough principalships, deployments, and whatever life brings you because you have the strength in you, and you will have a partner who loves you for who you are and everything you can become. He and your two beautiful, kind children give you a new and complete fulfillment of life.

While you will not be the President of the United States, you will become the President of an association and will work to spread your belief in positivity and gratitude. You will earn two bachelor's, a master’s, a specialist, and your doctorate even though you heard a teacher tell your mom in 5th grade that college wouldn’t be a feasible option. You love, read, meet amazing people, and you learn that the power to make a difference is within you.

The best advice that I can give you now is to not left the voice of doubt tell you that you are not ready or overpower the voice of passion and self drive. You are ready for whatever life brings you. Accept the challenge. You will thrive on it, but remember you need the loved ones in your life, so as you take care of yourself and strive to better who you are, remember to express gratitude for those who helped you to get there. My best advice to you is to jump, Shanna. You will have people who love and support you catch you when you fall, and eventually you will soar.