A Letter to My 16-Year-Old Self on Farmgirl’s 16th Birthday

Hmmm... high school senior or your local bank teller? Honestly, could go either way.

Farmgirl is sixteen today, which is kind of wild to type, and it got me thinking about what I’d say to the version of me who was sixteen. So I wrote her a letter. Fair warning, my letter’s not short, but is anything I write? And in case you’re just here for the flowers, that’s OK, too. We’re giving everyone 16% off (almost) everything with code SIXTEEN at checkout through Monday, November 9, so go ahead and start shopping in our featured shop!

A letter to my 16-year-old self

Dear 16-year-old Christi,

Hi, it’s you, just a lot older and a little wiser.

I know right now you’re the kid everyone makes fun of for her weird outfits (and I still love that you wear them anyway). I know most days you eat lunch by yourself in that recessed doorway by the pool, because sitting with you might make someone else uncool and nobody’s willing to risk it. And I know you don’t have even one really good friend to make those days a little easier. I’m so sorry, sweet girl. That’s a lot to carry by yourself. But I’ve got some news from the future, and I think it’ll give you something to look forward to.

Just me, looking like a 35-year-old pretending to be in high school. Andrea Zuckerman* walked so I could run.

The outfits are the whole point

The outfits, the not-fitting-in, the refusing to become someone else just so people will like you, those are the exact things that are going to build a company nobody thought would work. You’re going to start it from the dining room of a teeny San Francisco apartment, and it’s going to grow into something you can’t even imagine yet.

So that stubborn little part of you that would rather be yourself than fit in? Please keep her around, she’s going to come in really handy. You’re going to make a lot of big decisions without instructions or anyone promising they’ll work out, and plenty of people will have opinions about those decisions, some of whom will be generous enough to share them over and over again (very loudly even). Stay open to being wrong (you will be, a lot, and you’ll survive it every time), but trust your gut, because it’s a good one and you don’t need everyone to agree with you before you listen to it.

Being cool was never the goal

And here’s something it took me way too long to figure out: being cool was never the goal. High school cool has a pretty short shelf life, even if it feels like the most important thing in the world right now. Who lets you — or doesn’t let you — sit at their lunch table won’t decide how your life turns out. Being kind, working hard, and continuing to show up will have a whole lot more to do with that. Put your energy into becoming someone you’re proud of, and let everyone else worry about being “cool.”

The girl who smelled like a french fry

I know the kids at school have plenty to say about your jobs too, since you’re working at literally every fast food restaurant in town, usually a couple at a time. McDonald’s, Arby’s, Burger King, you’ve worn all the uniforms. I know how tired you are opening Burger King in the wee hours of the morning, heading straight to school smelling like a french fry, and then going right back to work as soon as the bell rings. It’s not glamorous, and nobody’s handing out trophies for working the drive-thru before sunrise, but all those early mornings and mundane tasks are building a kind of grit you can’t learn anywhere else. And every dollar you’re squirreling away in tin cans around the farm is teaching you how to save for something bigger, which is exactly how you’re going to go after your dreams someday without waiting for anyone to hand you the money. Farmgirl is here because of the girl who smelled like a french fry, so hold your head up, she’s doing a lot better than anyone gives her credit for.

Ask the questions anyway

Keep working hard and keep asking questions, because your work ethic and curiosity are going to take you places you literally can’t picture yet. And don’t let anyone tell you it’s either working hard or working smart, because it takes both, and you’re going to need every bit of each of them. You won’t know how to do most things before you have to do them, which is every bit as uncomfortable as it sounds, and you’re going to be in a lot of rooms where you don’t look like anyone else, with no degree and no fancy business school words, and you’re going to stay exactly who you are in every single one of them. Ask the questions anyway, pay attention, and be willing to look like you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing. And some days you really won’t, but you’ll figure it out. You always do.

Be grateful for what you’ve been given, and do something with it. That drive and that curiosity and that willingness to try one more time are gifts, so don’t take them for granted, but don’t feel like you have to downplay them either. You can know you’re good at something and still be humble, I promise those two get along just fine. And remember the people who help you along the way, because you’re going to have a lot of thank-you notes to write.

Two things that haven’t changed: My love of fashion magazines and people spelling my name wrong.

Stay in the arena

And whatever you do, stay in the arena. There’s a Teddy Roosevelt quote about the man in the arena that I love so much I changed all the mentions of “man” to “woman” and hung it in my office. It talks about how the credit goes to the person actually in the arena, face covered in dust and sweat, not the critics in the stands telling them how they’d have done it better. It’s a hard place to be, and some days you’ll fall flat on your face in front of everybody, but it doesn’t matter — just dust yourself off and keep going. The last thing you want is to end up in a rocking chair someday wishing you’d gotten your butt in there, but you didn’t because of what others thought of you.

Keep wearing the outfit

I’m three decades older than you now, which I know sounds ancient. And I’d be lying if I said I never think about that doorway by the pool. But I wouldn’t trade it, because so much of who I became started right there. And that company you’re going to build? It’s turning sixteen this year, the same age you are right now, and it’s every bit as stubborn, hardworking, and true to itself as you are. So keep wearing the outfit, kiddo. It all works out better than you could ever imagine.

Xx,

Christina

*For anyone who didn’t spend the ’90s glued to Beverly Hills, 90210: Andrea Zuckerman was the gang’s overachieving school-newspaper editor, played by an actress who was 29 when the show premiered. A true pioneer for grown women playing teenagers everywhere.