(Luckily, I can still make that happen in time! Thank you all so much, you just made my day a million times better!)

I wasn’t smoking anything when I said that. I actually saw my teenaged self in my mind’s eye, and in that light, offered my assurances.

That moment happened five years ago. I had just begun, at age 45, my current life–as a woman. So I was talking to the teenaged boy I was. I also said something else, for the first time: “I love you. Don’t forget that!”

They’re wrong. You’re not hideous. You’re not unloveable, unlikeable or unfuckable. You’ve got fabulous hair (stop scraping it back, wear it loose, and lose the centre parting), your skin is holycrapPERFECT, and you have a cracking figure. You know when you pose around in your bedroom mirror trying to convince yourself that you could be pretty from a certain angle? You’re pretty from all angles, you dunce. Ten years from now you’re going to look at photos and pine for that body. Enjoy it while you got it.

Also, you are active and fit. You ride horses, walk and cycle. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise. Just because you can’t climb the damn rope or hit a ball, that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with your fitness levels.

I know you think now that you’ll never start smoking. But perhaps if I drop a hint in your ear now about the approaching asthma, you really won’t.

And – stop comparing yourself to the other girls. Really. You’re not at all like most of them, and that’s just fine.