Dear Teen Me: Authors Write Letters to Their Teen Selves (True Stories) (33 page)

There are a few other pieces of information I’d like to send along your way, so bear with me.

• 1. First off, your hair looks super cute when it’s really short. Go ahead and lop it off! You’ll look like a beneficent pixie.
  
• 2. Secondly, DON’T SMOKE. Seriously. Put down the cigarettes NOW. If you don’t, you and I will struggle with quitting throughout our twenties. It totally isn’t worth it.
  
• 3. Remember all those boys who broke our hearts over the years? There was Brett (you), Dan Waitman (me), Steve (me again), Brett again (you); there were Jons and Adams and Matts and countless others. Sometimes we suffered for days or weeks. Sometimes we cried, sometimes we starved, and sometimes we couldn’t stop eating—but we always leaned on each other (and on an occasional dose of
  Pride and Prejudice
  and a certain Mr. Colin Firth) to get us through.
  

  I won’t say now that those experiences weren’t worth it, but you should know that they were just like the math problems we had to do in calc—their greatest worth was that they taught us
  process
  . In the case of calc, we learned how to think; in the case of the Toms, Jons, and Adams, we learned how to how to feel and to love. It wasn’t about the particulars, but the generals: All that heartbreak helped us learn how to heal, and it helped us become better and better at relationships.
  

• 4. Your parents are great in some ways and crazy in others. So are mine. They won’t necessarily understand us any better as we get older. But we can understand them better, and understand that they have their own
  issues and limitations that are absolutely
  not
  reflections of us. Your parents love you and they’re doing the best they can.
  
• 5. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. You’re going to go through some dark times. I’ll be there for you. So will Laura and Jackie. So will Dafna, who will become your best friend in college, and so will various other people who love you. Lean on us.
  
• 6. Go to therapy!
  
• 7. You’re going to be tempted to move to DC and go to grad school some day. Skip that whole section of your life; go straight to Portland, Maine. You’ll love it there.
  
• 8. You may not know this, but I was really jealous of you in high school. Boys always seemed to fall in love with you, and rightly so. And I felt they always just used me because of my somewhat…
  questionable
  morals and attitudes. Anyway, I just want to say: That was my problem, not yours, and I’m sorry. You deserve to be loved. So do I, for that matter!
  
• 9. Don’t let me get so drunk at your house in Otis after prom!! Ugh. I thought I was going to die.
  
• 10. You’ll be okay. You’ll be more than okay. You’ll be great.
  

Love,

Dear Teen Lauren (from Elizabeth Miles),

I can’t believe we ever hated each other. Remember that? How you thought I was always either laughing hysterically or sobbing (true), and how I thought you were a snob (also true)? Thank God for Alanis Morissette and eggs with ketchup and
Pride and Prejudice
and the Beatles and the rest of the random and wonderful things we eventually bonded over. If not for them, I may have missed out on a truly rewarding friendship with an impressive, generous, beautiful woman. I’ve read your letter, and in response—and in order to thank you for being my best friend, then and now—I’ve compiled some of my own advice tidbits:

• 1. My hair looks good short? Yours looks good—striking, really—when it’s combed.
  
• 2. DON’T SMOKE! It’s the worst. It’s an expensive habit that will give us wrinkles! Who wants wrinkles?!
  
• 3. You are one sexy
  chica
  and you can
  work
  it. You know it, I know it, boys know it, and girls know it. It’s a complicated thing, being a woman who is both seductive and smart—and that balancing act doesn’t get any easier as you get older. Rest assured, your charms go far beyond your pretty face, hot body, and racy sense of adventure. Don’t exploit yourself. Trust in the fact that you’re loved now, and that you’ll continue to be loved in the future, for much more than your sex appeal.
  
• 4. We had a list in the back of our shared journal: “Hook-Up Deal-Breakers and Makers.” That list may not be as relevant these days (not least because of that ring on your finger), but its underlying philosophy is right on:
  We deserve the best
  . It’s okay to say what we want and to identify what we don’t.
  
• 5. You’re going to experience some terrible losses—too much, too early. Do what you can in these teenage years to make yourself resilient, to understand that bad things happen to good people, to cultivate sources of support both internal and external that you can rely on when your worst-case scenarios become reality.
  
• 6. Totally, go to therapy.
  
• 7. Even though we were best friends, we never really talked about “popularity” per se. That’s probably a good thing—we were too busy trying to remember our harmonies for Quaker Notes. But despite having a sizeable group of friends and being involved in several inclusive school activities, I know I was still
  worried that so-and-so doesn’t like me
  , and
  secretly thrilled to have been invited to that party
  , etc. First of all, teenage Lauren, let’s be open with each other about these concerns. And second of all, if you have them too, just know that we’ll realize SOON after high school which friendships matter and which ones don’t—in fact, the closeness that you, I, Laura, and Jackie share is an anomaly, not the norm. Now, eleven years after high school, I talk to precisely four people who I knew back then.
  
• 8. Just like I should skip my hemp-necklace-wearing phase, you should pass over the faux-bling-wearing phase (wait until you can afford the real stuff)—hippie chic and gaudy baubles don’t really suit us.
  
• 9. Maybe pressure me to hand in at least
  one
  of my AP European History assignments on time? How do you
  do
  it? (“It,” in this case, means having a relatively normal teenage life
  and
  getting straight A’s—God, I was
  so
  envious!)
  
• 10. You may not know it now, but babes, you’re gonna blow everyone away.
  

Love,

Stephanie Pellegrin

Dear Teen Me,

Psst! Hey! You in the corner of the library with your nose stuck in a book. Yes, you. Don’t recognize me without that awful perm, do you? (Remind me again why you thought that was a good idea?)

Anyway, I hope you don’t mind if I sit with you for a minute, but we need to talk. Don’t worry about the “no talking in the library” rule. I’m sure we’ll be fine. Librarians aren’t as bad as they seem.

Judging from the hair and braces I’d have to guess you’re in your junior year. Yes? Thought so. I’d forgotten how many lonely lunch hours you spent in the school library. You have some friends in the cafeteria that you could sit with, but you don’t feel like you really fit in, do you? That’s why you joined every school club you could. I just counted and you’re in eighteen, not to mention the numerous after-school activities you’re involved in. I mean honestly, you joined the ROTC. You don’t even
like
ROTC! And I won’t even bother bringing up that time you tried ballet. I’m still having nightmares about the fifth position!