Dear Teen Me: Authors Write Letters to Their Teen Selves (True Stories) (12 page)

All this stuff—it leaves you conflicted. You’re pretty sure that the popular teenagers don’t have goofy dance parties to crazy old records—I mean, they usually just hang out by the river, drinking. And “normal” teenagers don’t like economic theory, or—heaven forbid in rural Pennsylvania in 1984—“come out.” Yet you like your small group of friends and the things you do together. They get your offbeat sense of humor and don’t make fun of you when you decide to wear thermal underwear as leggings one day, or that you quit tennis because the whole idea of hitting a ball for hours just leaves you feeling…
eh
.

Go ahead and embrace life on the social fringes, because one day you’ll realize—without a doubt—that it’s where you
want
to be. You’ll reject all accepted definitions of what’s “cool” and actively seek out friends who see the world a little…differently. You’ll even marry one of those weirdos—and it’ll be great. You’re going to laugh. A lot.

And that weirdness inside of you—the quirkiness that compels you and your best friend to speak French constantly throughout your junior year—is going to have a more immediate payoff too, because your teacher will note your strange habit and help both of you win scholarships to spend the next summer at a university in France. That experience—living on a foreign campus at age sixteen—will ignite a lifelong passion for travel that will take you around the globe. You will never have the attention span needed to safely operate a deep fryer, but you’ll confidently navigate life in places like China, India, and Eastern Europe. That’s not bad, right?

So best wishes, be true to your inner geek—and expect to have a truly “bon voyage!”

Caridad Ferrer

Dear Teen Me,

You’ve got a bad case of the Jekyll and Hydes. I mean,
sans
the whole split-personality thing, it pretty much nails you, doesn’t it? C’mon, let’s examine the evidence.

There’s the side that’s crazy shy (let’s refer to this as the Jekyll half) and born into a family that Just Doesn’t Get It. They don’t even
know
how to spell shy. Your dad is the life of the party; your mother is a natural attention (read: “man”) magnet; your brother could sell ice to an Eskimo, and your sister’s idea of a good time is going into a room where she doesn’t know a single soul. And that’s just your immediate family. The rest of the relatives? They aren’t any better, most of them falling under some variation on a theme of Extreme Extrovert.

Pfft.

To you, shoving bamboo shoots under your fingernails sounds like a better alternative to small talk.

So to say they don’t understand what you mean when you say you’re feeling shy is putting it mildly. They think it’s a silly pretense, especially when you balk at being paraded in public like a trained monkey, playing the Bach Invention that won you that piano competition or reciting the poem that your fifth-grade teacher insisted on entering in the Dade County Youth Fair, and which won first place. Which brings us to the second reason why they have a hard time understanding your reactions. After all, why on earth do you enter competitions if you don’t
want
the attention, right?

Which brings us to Hyde.
That
side of your personality is as competitive as Jekyll is shy. But explaining that you love competition—that you love competing against yourself as much as you love competing against others—is usually met with blank stares. They don’t get that you’re simply incapable of taking on a pursuit if you don’t intend to become the best you personally can. Which has the unexpected side benefit of allowing you to fake it—people will think you’re totally outgoing and confident.

No wonder people don’t get it. You hardly get it yourself.

On the one hand you’ve got Hyde saying, “Come
on
, dude. Those people out there—they’re not doing
anything
you can’t do. Let’s go!” while Jekyll’s all, “Oh, I don’t know, it’s getting pretty crazy out there, isn’t it? Hey, look—a nice dark corner!”

Welcome to the battle you’re going to wage for the rest of your life. The Jekyll in you will pull away from the spotlight, so scared of being made a fool of that you’ll work yourself into an anxious, stomach-churning lather, while your Hyde side will force you to overcome the nausea and just get on with it, already. Jekyll’s going to win for a long time—the anxiety will rise to levels such that you’ll abandon a lot of your dreams, finding it easier to retreat and blend into the wallpaper, even as Hyde writhes inside you, furious that you’re such a monumental wuss.

Don’t look at it as being a wuss—look at it as…hibernation. Because I promise, there will come a time when you’ll bust out, voluntarily, in full, glorious Technicolor. You’ll be an engaging (or so you’ve been told) presence on panels, win prestigious writing awards before your peers, and even step out onto a competitive ballroom dance floor.

And Hyde’ll be right there, helping you enjoy the spotlight.

Michael Griffo

Dear Teen Me,

At some moments it seems like it truly has been thirty years since I was in high school. But at other times I can still hear the late bell ringing and the locker doors slamming shut. It’s like I’m still there with you, like a part of me has never let go.

So much happened during those four years, but the most rewarding and life-changing experience occurred when you were cast in the school play. Do you remember how quickly you made new friends, gained respect from your teachers, and learned that you loved being onstage? It was also the first time you fell in love.