What I Would Tell The 16 Year Old Katie Moore

For the long weekend, we drove down to visit my mom for her 60th birthday. My bedroom in my childhood home is essentially a tomb, with everything in exactly the same place that I left it. The only noticeable difference is the faint smell of Pledge in the air - my teenage self barely lifted a polish chipped finger nail to fold clothes, let alone dust!

While taking a trip down memory lane, I got a bit by the nostalgia bug and dug out a few of my old yearbooks.

Flipping through school pictures featuring oversized Starter jackets,Tommy Hilfiger overalls, and daisy prints, I realized how many things I wish I knew then that I know now. Such as...

Frosty, pastel makeup is not "one size fits all".

Matching your makeup to your clothes is making somewhat of a comeback but frost overload and insane amounts of sparkle in every corner and crevice does nothing for no one. If anything, I should have stuck with a light, perfecting moisturizer like the one from Glossier, to conquer the desert that was my cheeks, a good mascara that could hold up through a Dawson's Creek marathon, and a Baby Spice inspired pink lip tint like this one.


 No one looked like the girls in the Delia's catalog except for the girls in the Delia's catalog.

In high school, I wasn't much of a runner. But you bet your bottom dollar when I saw the corner of that month's Delia's catalog peeking out from our red mailbox, I sprinted down our driveway like I was in the trials for the Olympics. I ooh-ed and ahh-ed over pages of floral prints, bucket pants, and drawstring flared jeans. Bended page ears and Sharpie stars covered that catalog from front to back during Christmas season. The only problem is, I probably owned maybe 3 or 4 barely worn items from there and those had a semi-permanent home in the bottom of my closet. The jeans would bunch in the wrong pages, halter ties refused stay safely tied in an upright position, and my beloved bucket hats made me look more like Walter Matheau's buddy in Grumpier Old Men than the hip, carefree models in the pictures. But each month, I continued to circle away and pretend that velvet camis were a right, not a privilege. 

What are some things you would tell your 16 year old self? Leave your one piece of advice in the comments below!