Dear Me

Hey.

It's me, you.  So, you're graduating middle school.  You got accepted to LaSalle Academy.  Congrats.

Things are gonna get rough.  Pretty soon,  you'll be in high school.  I know you're excited.  I know you wanted to go to LaSalle for years.  Mom wanted you to.  Grandpa wanted you to, and that's why Mom wanted it.  You're never going to really talk to your friends again.    

At LaSalle, you'll learn who you are.  You might not like it.  You'll have friends who hurt themselves, and friends who do drugs, and friends who don't eat.  You're going to love them no matter what, even though you won't understand at first, and you'll wish you could do something to help them.  You wont be able to, and it's gonna make you feel bad about yourself.  Just remember that loving them is the best thing you can do.  That's how you have to help.  Eventually, you're going to understand, even though you don't yet.  You see girls with scars on their arms and you avoid them.  You think they're terrifying.  Or sick.  Pretty soon, you'll know exactly why they do it.  

You're not going to date any boys in high school.  I know that's a sore subject with you already. I know you're shy.  You're going to fall for a girl.  I can't tell you if it ends well.  I don't know yet.  All I know is that she'll be your first kiss, and you'll date a few other girls, but always go back to her.  You'll never be brave enough to talk to the boys you think are cute.  People will think you're a lesbian.  You aren't, I promise.  In case you were wondering, she isn't butch, and she isn't Lesly.

She'll have dumped you twice by the time you turn eighteen.  You're going to be a wreck.  You aren't going to get accepted to RISD, you're going to end up on Ritalin that makes you lose your appetite, and you'll nearly fail out of school.  Your boobs will never get bigger.  You don't cry now, but you're going to make up for it in the next four years, when the girl you think you love is in Japan, or telling you about a boy she likes, or telling you that she isn't interested.   You'll cry when you go from having straight A's, to being a loser who's thrilled when she passes History with a D+.   You'll cry when Mom talks about divorcing Dad, and the family is bankrupt.  You'll cry because the medicine made you stop eating, and when you look in the mirror, you feel disgusting.

You will make great friends, and you will grow out of them.  It will take years, but by the time you're ready to graduate, you'll want nothing to do with them.  There will be a few people who you thought you weren't as close to, and they will become the best friends you have ever had, because you'll connect more deeply with them.  For whatever reason, these two people understand you and your pain, and you understand theirs.  But you understand each other's happiness, too, and that's just as important.  They will be the ones whose arms you cry into, and theirs will be the voices telling you to get the fuck over it and get back into life.  You're going to do the same for them.  You need them, to bring you cupcakes from Whole Foods, and let you know that you aren't alone.   The girl you think you're in love with?  She'll be there for you too.  She won't understand you, but she'll still always be your friend.

Right now, you have all the potential, all the hope, all the naivete in the world.  You think you're going to be the best of the best, and that all your dreams will come true.  By the time that you have become me, you are going to want to give up.  You will hate your life, and your world, and yourself, and you aren't going to believe that things will get better.  Please promise, for me, that you will never forget your first day of your freshman year.  Promise that no matter what happens to you, or to me, don't run away.  Deep down, I need to always have you there, thinking that I can do anything.  Because even when no one seems to think I can, even if they're right, I can't lose all my hope.  If I do, we'll die.

Read this letter and tuck it away somewhere, and when you are sitting at your computer at 8:51pm on a Wednesday night in 2010, make sure that you remember not to give up on us.  Tell me I can fix it.

Sincerely,
You