written the day after going through 10 boxes of things from my childhood to university years. Making lists can be as good as therapy.

• That sick feeling you get every morning on the way to school -- notice how you only get it in the morning, not on the way home? It's not car sickness, it's anxiety. Tell someone.
• Your VCE score means absolutely nothing after the first three months out of secondary school.
• You can do VCE at TAFE instead of secondary school and be around people who act like (and are) adults.
• Other people are just as scared as you are. That's why they act the way they do.
• Wear whatever the damn hell you want.
• Driving a car isn't that scary.
• Your nose only looks so big now because the rest of your head isn't fully grown yet. In a few years it will look fine.
• You are not ugly.
• I understand that when you moved out of home and were finally free of Mum's vigilance and your father's contempt, you had to go through that phase of eating mostly junk. But it probably would have been better if it had lasted 6 months instead of 6 years.
• Start reading literature and classics from a young age. Reading helps to improve your writing.
• He was never meant to be your boyfriend, but he'll be your oldest and one of your most loyal friends.
• Whatever you think is wrong with you, other people have it too. You're not alone.
• Make sure you put that dirty book back before your brother gets home.
• You don't need to go out on Friday nights to be a valid person. You don't need to hang out with them to be cool. They're only work colleagues. And really: they can't be that cool if they only have work colleagues to hang out with on Friday nights!
• The girl you lived next door to at Uni had a mental illness that caused her to lash out. It really had nothing to do with you. You had as much right to be there as she did.
• Back up your hard drive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Mum's doctor was right: you will never be thin. But it doesn't matter.
• You will find the love of your life.
• Your Year 8 art teacher is full of shit. You didn't deserve an E grade. Don't let his vitriol stop you from creating art.
• Friends are like paintings: even if they look great in your house, when you move to a new house, they might not fit. All you can do is give them away.
• Make sure you put your amethyst runes and the notes for your conscript in a place where you'll find them easily. Otherwise you'll spend years looking for them.
• You know that hunch you had that Bryan and Ness wanted you to stop hanging out with them so they could be alone together? You were right.
• Don't steal those books from the library. In a few years there will be a thing called the internet where you can purchase them for yourself, and get as much information as you want on any topic.
• Go to the David Bowie exhibition. He's going to die in 6 months, and you'll regret not going.
• Just call Barbara, dammit! I don't care how scared of making phone calls you are, one day it will be too late and you will have lost a friend.
• Once you're old enough to make your own decisions, you don't ever have to see your father again if you don't want to.
• The retainer that the dog chewed a piece out of and which Mum wouldn't replace because it cost too much was actually only $80. You could have paid for it with the pocket money you already had saved up. You could have bought a new one instead of having to stick a dog-chewed retainer with a chunk missing out of it for years.
• Pay him back the $100 he lent you, because soon he'll dump you and you won't have a chance to give it back, and you'll feel bad for years.
• Don't listen to A. when he says to give away that tweed jacket. Man, that was a good jacket.

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