Dear Teen Me: Authors Write Letters to Their Teen Selves (True Stories) (15 page)

Geoff Herbach

Dear Teen Me,

Humiliation and hilarity are closely linked, my little friend. Don’t lie there in bed, your guts churning, as you replay the terrible scene. I’m
glad
your shirt stuck to the floor.

I love your break-dancing crew, okay? You and your friends from the rural Wisconsin hills have that K-Tel how-to album (including posters and diagrams). You pop. You worm. You spin on your backs. You windmill. In fact, you’re not even that bad!

I love your silver “butterfly” pants (with forty-six zippers) that burst red fabric when you spin. Beautiful.

I love it when you take your giant piece of cardboard (mobile dance floor) down to the corner of Kase Street and Highway 81 to dance for traffic. Maybe you’re right. Maybe a talent scout will be driving between Stitzer and Hazel Green. Maybe you
will
be discovered…Keep at it!

I love it that you have the guts to go into Kennedy Mall in Dubuque, Iowa to dance across from Hot Sam’s Pretzels. You and your buddies go for broke in front of a small, glum crowd (who all eat Hot Sam’s pretzels), and when security comes to escort you out, you scream, “Dancing is not a crime!” I love that.

I especially love what happened at Dubuque’s Five Flags Center a few months later. You and your crew (Breakin Fixation) challenged Dubuque’s 4+1 Crew to a dance-off. You practiced. You got T-shirts with your crew name emblazoned on them. You worked hard, and you daydreamed harder. You imagined the roaring crowd lifting you onto their shoulders. You didn’t expect the Five Flags floor to be so sticky. You didn’t expect to sweat through your new shirt. You didn’t expect the flesh of your back to be gripped and twisted so that it felt like it was on fire. You didn’t expect it, but that’s how it was, and it hurt so bad that instead of spinning into a windmill—the main part of your routine—you just writhed on the floor, howling.

So okay, sure, people laughed at you—and you know why? Because you looked really funny.

Don’t stay awake worrying about it, though. Don’t wonder what you should have done differently. Don’t beat yourself up, gut boiling with embarrassment. Don’t imagine punching out the members of 4+1—you can’t blame them for wearing slick Adidas tracksuits that didn’t grip the floor. Just go to sleep, kid, and get ready for the next dance. It’s all going to be great, okay?

How do I know?

Because now, so many years later, you can barely remember your victories (although there were some). What you think about now are the high-wire acts, the epic falls, and the punishing jeers of your classmates. You think about how excellent it is that you got up, dusted yourself off, and with utter seriousness of purpose, tried again.

Your immense dorkiness as a teen will be the center of your artistic life, the center of your sense of humor, the center of ongoing friendships with so many of the kids you knew back then. (You guys never discuss the relatively boring victories—you only talk about the grand, majestic, hilarious failures.)

What if you hit it big at that contest? Would you be a professional break-dancer now? Would success have gone to your head? Or would you be a rich banker? Or a lawyer? Terrible!

But instead, you stuck to that floor, with your back on fire with the pain, and you screamed.

Don’t beat yourself up over it, okay? Just relax. Keep dancing by the highway, you splendid little dork.

Nancy Holder

Dear Teen Me,

Excuse me for interrupting you while you’re hard at work. In the picture I’m looking at, in the moment I’m thinking of, you’re choreographing a piece to “Lady Jane,” by the Rolling Stones. You’ve organized your dancers into three groups, weaving them in and out of the intricate threads of guitar and harpsichord and dulcimer. Every time you work on the piece you can’t catch your breath. You’re nervous and exhilarated and you wonder if you’re crazy because getting this right means so much to you; you feel every note so deeply. The song sounds plaintive, sinister, and sexy all at the same time. You keep seeing Mick Jagger sneering as he gazes at some poor Tudor girl sobbing because he’s dumping her. In your imagination, he looks like David Bowie as the Demon King in
Labyrinth.
Different rocker, same edge.