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I am ambivalent about the idea of writing a letter to the Hannahs of my past. I learned lessons in my twenties and early thirties that I wish I had learned as a teen but that also- if I had learned them at 16 or 19 or any other time, may have pushed me in a different direction and (though this last year has been incredibly difficult) I like who I am and where I am going right now. And I feel, generally, that if I had been more responsible and had a better understanding of the world as a young person, I would be so fundamentally different now that I would not be me at all, I would be a different Hannah. A stranger to myself.
That said, here is a collection of wisdom that I do wish I had understood as a younger woman. A list of advice to myself from myself that would have saved me some trauma and heartbreak without fundamentally changing who I am. Some of it is very specific to me but most of it applies more generally. Perhaps I can be the ‘big sister’ to you that I did not have.
Any man in his 30s who is willing to date a college kid has issues and you should stay away.