Dear Teen Me: Authors Write Letters to Their Teen Selves (True Stories) (8 page)

Josh A. Cagan

Dear Teen Me,

The cafeteria pizza at BU is disgusting, but you and the kids you’re hanging out with eat it because it’s Friday night and hey, you’re freshmen. You’re wearing a plastic
Dick Tracy
movie-tie-in hat. (You’re trying to make that your “thing.”)

I’m sure you’ve noticed that I said “the kids you’re hanging out with,” and not “your friends.” Your friends are a distant, candy-coated memory.

Why you’re even hanging out with these kids is a mystery, because as far as you’re concerned, nobody likes you. You’re not doing great in class, and nobody else wants to talk about cartoons and Muppets—instead, they want to talk about Shakespeare and Chekhov. Everyone else came from fascinating places, they’ve had amazing lives, and they seem like they were born into a life in the theater.

You’re some boring guy from a boring suburb.

So for the first part of your freshman year, you try to communicate to everyone at all times that YOU ARE DIFFERENT AND SPECIAL. If you could wear a gold dookie chain around your neck that said that, you would. (Although you probably would have spray-painted it black first. You wear a lot of black, hoping you can make that your “thing.”)

You wear a different pair of crazy sunglasses every day of the week, hoping you can make that your “thing.”

You never work with other students unless it’s absolutely demanded of you, and instead you present bombastic monologues about murder and loneliness, hoping you can make that your “thing.”

You work your ass off to prove to people that you are awesome, smart, edgy, and talented. You work harder at that than you do at any actual schoolwork, harder than you even work on your own art. Whether you know it or not,
this
is what has actually become your “thing.”

Still, thank God you live in a dorm. Because regardless of your social status (real or imagined), if you have two dollars to throw toward pizza, you can sit in some other kids’ room and eat some of that pizza. So yeah, the cafeteria pizza at BU is
disgusting, but you and the kids you’re hanging out with eat it, because it’s Friday night and you’re freshmen. And despite my earlier warning, you’re still wearing that plastic “Dick Tracy” hat. (Don’t get me started.)

You take a wad of napkins and begin to blot the orange grease off of your slice. Then you look at the wad of napkins and say out loud (but mostly to yourself), “I should just rub this on my face and cut out the middleman.”

Everyone looks at you like the dog just talked.

And then they laugh. It’s your first real laugh at college. You probably don’t think much about it, but trust me, this is HUGE.

Because for the first time in your college career, you didn’t open your yap to complain about how nobody understands you, or how everyone is so phony, or to brag about how many pairs of sunglasses you own.

You observed something that was funny to you, and you said it. Not because you thought it would be the coolest thing to say, not because you thought it would make people think you were brilliant, but just because you were being yourself.

And as it turned out, you being yourself made people like you. It still does.

In other words, you finally found your “thing.”

Thank heavens. That hat was ridiculous.

Riley Carney

Dear Teen Me,

You know that dream you’ve always had? The one about becoming an author? I’ll let you in on a secret: It does happen. You make it happen.

But it’s not going to be easy. You’re still stuck in high school right now. I remember what it was like, and I know exactly how you feel—it seems like the whole thing is one big game; that you’ll never find your place; that you’ll never get away from the drama.

Like with your “best” friend. You helped her with her homework, you were nice to her, and you provided an easy boost to her self-esteem. She never really cared about you, though. Once, she even handed out Christmas presents in front of you and conveniently forgot to give you one. And I also remember what it was like on that school trip where you had to sleep in the top bunk above feuding friends who were crying hysterically. The drama is everywhere, and no matter how hard you try to avoid it, you can’t seem to get away.

You’re getting tired of eating lunch alone in the library just so you don’t have to wander through the rows of tables at the cafeteria until you find a place to sit. You’re tired of people who just want to use you for homework help. You’re tired of the box that has been built up around you, tired of the walls that keep you trapped, that keep you from becoming the person who you really are inside, rather than the person who everyone thinks you are.

But in less than a year, everything will change. You’ll find a way to break free of that box by doing something you’ve always loved. Writing will be your outlet. You’re going to write a book—a book that you’ve been dreaming about for years. You are going to pour your heart and soul into that book, and it’s going to be published. Over the next three years, you’ll speak at schools all over the country, something you never thought you would have the courage to do.

But there’s something you have to realize before you can break free: The box that you’re in is only as strong and only as real as you believe it to be.

For so many years your peers have tried to label you, to tell you what you can and cannot do. And you believed them. You accepted what they said. You stopped believing in yourself.

You stopped believing in your dreams.

But little by little, you’ll realize that the box doesn’t have to exist. Once you start writing seriously, you’ll discover yourself, and you’ll realize that no one else has the power to dictate your own choices and your dreams.

You’re the only one who can decide your future. You’re the only one who can choose the person you want to be.

So, Teen Me, it’s up to you. It only takes a little confidence, a little daring, and a willingness to risk failure to tear down those walls. Don’t be afraid to reach for that impossible goal. Embrace it instead.

You never know where the impossible might take you.