a guide to growing up: things i could’ve told my younger self

when i turned 18, i finally opened the letter my thirteen-year-old self had written for the day i officially became an adult.

all i felt was bittersweetness.

everything she wished for was nothing like the person i had become.

happy birthday, sana ngayong araw na ‘to ay masaya ka na.

was my thirteen-year-old self unhappy? 

lagi mong tatandaan na ang 13 years old na ikaw ay ang pinakamatapang, and i hope na hanggang ngayon ay matapang ka pa rin. 

of course she was.

she has always been a fighter. she has always been surviving.

mag-aral ka pa nang mabuti para mas lalong maging proud ang pamilya mo sayo. pati ang papa mo na nasa heaven na.

the words mag-aral pa stayed with me.

it meant that even then, i was already trying my hardest. 

even at thirteen, i believed that working harder was the answer to everything.

then i reached the line that shattered me.

i love you, sorry kung nasaktan ko ang sarili ko.

five years later, she was still apologizing.

the scars that were visible when she was a kid turned into wounds that no one could see with their naked eye. 

and if you ask me now, i would probably tell you that everything i went through shaped the person i am today. it made me resilient. it honed me. 

but if you caught me alone at two in the morning, with nothing but my own thoughts for company, i’d tell you something else.

i’d tell you that i didn't deserve any of it.

i will write a growing-up manual i wish someone had handed to the younger me. 

not the version of growing up filled with fairytales, whimsies, and rainbows, but the one that prepares you for the parts no one warns you about.

because growing up is beautiful.

but it is also painfully real.

during my yearly hangout, i asked my junior high school best friends one question:

"if you could tell your younger self one thing, what would it be?"

“1. diretso ka lang.”

vinn answered first. 

to me, he has always been the kind of person who looked like he had everything together. you would never know he was struggling unless you asked him directly.

"diretso ka lang."

just keep going.

when your elementary teacher humiliated us in front of the class. when you failed your first exam. when your classmate put chewed bubblegum on your notes. when you experienced your first heartbreak.

when you convinced yourself you weren't doing enough—as a freshman who was trying to figure it all out.

life doesn't stop to ask whether we're ready; it simply keeps moving.

and somehow, despite carrying more than we ever thought we could, we continue walking toward a destination we can't even see.

maybe that's the scary part.

or maybe that's the beautiful part.

because the road is uncertain, but the people and experiences we meet along the way become the home we build for ourselves.

“2. okay lang magpahinga.”

next was gean.

i used to hate him in junior high, not because he was mean, but because he made me wish i had been born smarter. he was effortlessly brilliant. the type of student who could spend the whole day playing mobile games and still ace every exam.

it's okay to rest.

when you're young, you think you have unlimited energy.

you tell yourself you'll sleep after this assignment. after this exam. after this semester. after this achievement.

but your body keeps score.

eventually, your mind refuses to cooperate, and the only language it knows anymore is exhaustion.

so go to your friend's birthday party. take a nap. watch the sunset. read something that won't be on the exam.

rest is not a reward for finishing everything. it's what allows you to keep going.

sometimes, i wonder if we were exactly the kids billy joel was singing to in vienna.

"slow down, you crazy child."

what was the rush?

maybe most of us entered college already burnt out because we never learned that resting was just as important as working hard.

i wish i had listened when older people told me to give my brain a break. turns out, i'd need it far more in college, and in life, than i ever did in high school.

“3. huwag mong masyadong pahirapan ang sarili mo."

jewel's answer felt like a continuation of gean's.

she taught me kindness back in seventh grade. just like her name, she has always had this quiet way of shining; but even the brightest people fight battles inside their own heads.

don't make life harder than it already is.

when you're young, your greatest enemy is often your own mind. you overthink conversations that ended days ago. you convince yourself your friends secretly dislike you. you abandon opportunities before you even try because you've already imagined yourself failing.

you build prisons out of possibilities.

you make simple things complicated because you're trying so hard to control an ending that hasn't happened yet.

sometimes, the hardest thing you'll ever have to do is stop thinking and simply live.

“4. hindi mo kailangang maging masaya palagi.”

marianne said.

she’s my best friend since we still had our milk teeth. when she walks in the room, everything turns bright. she laughs loudly, loves deeply, and somehow always knows the right thing to do when someone else is hurting. 

because even the people who look like sunshine get tired of pretending they don't have rainy days.

when we were younger, happiness felt like a requirement. if you cried too much, people would ask what was wrong. if you stayed quiet, they would assume something happened. somewhere along the way, we learned that being okay all the time was something to aspire to.

but growing up teaches you that emotions do not arrive one at a time. you can be grateful and grieving. hopeful and exhausted. healing and still hurting. there will be mornings when getting out of bed already feels like a victory, and there will be nights when you realize that surviving the day was enough.

and maybe, these are the words my younger self needed to hear the most.

that she wasn’t weak for crying herself to sleep. that she wasn’t difficult for feeling too much. that she was never too much.

i would tell her to always wear her heart on her sleeve, because that is what makes her human. that is what makes us human.

while growing up, she will meet every emotion there is to meet, even the ones the world insists she should hide. there will be days when she will mistake her sensitivity for weakness, when she will think that her existence weighs too heavily on the people she loves. there will be moments when leaving feels easier than staying.

but i hope she learns that a heart capable of breaking is also a heart capable of loving. and that there is nothing shameful about it either.

along the way, she will lose people she thought she could never live without. some will leave by choice. some will be taken by time. others will remain, but only as memories of who they used to be. she will grieve people, places, and even versions of herself that she once believed would last forever.

but that is the quiet agreement we make with life.

change is the only thing that keeps its promises. people arrive like seasons, and they leave like them too. some become homes. some become storms. all of them leave something behind—a lesson tucked between old photographs, a scar that no longer aches, a love that continues to exist even after goodbye.

if i could write a guide to growing up, it would not tell her how to avoid heartbreak, failure, loneliness, or grief. it would not promise her that everything happens for a reason, because sometimes terrible things simply happen.

instead, i would tell her this:

you will survive days you cannot imagine surviving.

you will become someone your younger self would recognize—not because your life turned out exactly as she dreamed, but because despite everything, you never stopped choosing to love, to hope, and to begin again.

and one day, you'll open an old journal and realize that all this time, you were never writing a guide for growing up.

you were writing a letter back to the little girl who started it all.

Article: Maui Umali

Illustration: Leann Grace Tamares