Dear Teen Me: Authors Write Letters to Their Teen Selves (True Stories) (38 page)

Tom Ryan

Dear Teen Me,

Let me get this out of the way first: You’re gay. And in the end, you’ll come out. And yes, eventually it does get better. Much better.

But let’s just say that it doesn’t happen overnight. In fact, there’s a whole hell of a lot you’ll have to deal with in the meantime before you’re able to admit who you really are.

That’s what I want to talk about now: the meantime.

First up: Don’t stop singing. Please.

You love singing. I know it. I know that the first thing you’ll do after you get your license is grab your favorite mix tape, pop it in the tape deck, and drive around by yourself singing along (at the top of your mother-freaking lungs) to Fleetwood Mac, Aerosmith, and Roxette.

You love dancing too, right? Jumping up and down and feeling like a superstar in the movie of your life?

You like to bake cookies and decorate cakes. You like sassy female comedians. You like to watch figure skating. You write poetry about sunsets over the ocean. Do you get where I’m going with this?

Yep. You love a whole bunch of supergay shit.

And that’s okay, despite what the voice has to say.

You know exactly what I’m talking about. The nasty little voice in the back of your head that tells you to rein it in, to try acting straight. The voice that tells you that the things you love and the thoughts you think make you worthless—an embarrassment. The voice that says you should be ashamed of yourself.

Worst of all, the voice will tell you, day and night, that if you don’t watch your step, then people will start to see who you really are.

But there are also going to be times when you can’t help yourself. When you let yourself get up onstage and belt out a tune for an audience. When you bust out your disco moves at the school dance because
somebody
has to do
the Bee Gees justice. When you come to school bursting with the latest Hollywood gossip because it’s just too juicy to not talk about. When you buy that sweater at Le Chateau, because you
have to
—I mean, come on, it’s the
perfect
shade of green!

The voice is going to tell you to hold it all in—and more often than not, the voice will win out over your instincts. But sometimes you’re going to tell the voice to shut the eff up, because you can’t help it. You can’t help doing the things you want to do. Sometimes you just can’t help being who you are.

And those times are going to be the best times. When you don’t care what people think, when you let yourself do the things you want to do, with the people you love. They’re going to be the best times because you are better at being yourself than you are at being anyone else.

So please, promise me something…When you feel like singing, just do it. Lift up your head, close your eyes, open your lungs, and sing. Sing so loud and so long that the voice has no choice but to shut up and listen.

Eventually, you won’t even remember what it sounds like.

Leila Sales

Dear Teen Me,

You’re probably hoping that I’m writing to you—from
the future
—with words of advice, sage wisdom I have picked up over my years as an adult which will somehow save you from all embarrassing and depressing situations. I should do that, shouldn’t I? It would be really nice of me to help you be a more well adjusted person.

The trouble with that is, when I think of advice I could give you, I mostly come up with things for you
not
to do.

For example, when the boy you’ve had a crush on for two years rests his elbow on your shoulder,
do not
respond by saying, “Aren’t you a little short for that?” Yes, that will remove his arm, but it will also remove any chance you might have had of going out with him.

Do not
write long letters to every girl in your bunk at camp, or to every member of your graduating class, in which you explain to them how much you care about them and explain how they can still improve themselves. This is weird, and nobody will appreciate it. You are actually not an expert on other people’s character flaws. Furthermore, writing fifty letters is a huge time investment, and you could probably spend those hours doing something more useful, like learning how to cook (which you still do not know how to do, sorry).

Do not
go on a self-loathing spree after you get rejected from your four top-choice colleges. It’s not because you’re worthless and unappreciated; it’s because getting into college is hard.

Do not
pull out in front of that school bus when there’s a police car directly behind you. That’s a one-hundred-dollar ticket, Teen Me. You could use that hundred dollars, if you still had it today. You could buy yourself a new iPod. (Teen Me, iPods are this amazing technology that let you carry around
thousands
of songs instead of just a few CDs. I mean it. The future is a crazy place.)

Anyway. I could go on. You make a lot of mistakes as a teenager, it’s true, and you make some enemies as well. But here’s the thing: I don’t
actually
want you to avoid those mistakes. Because then you would have nothing to write about.

Even if I could instruct you on how to get through high school without offending a single one of your classmates, without scaring off a single boy, without angering any of your teachers—even then, I wouldn’t do it. Because each time you ate lunch alone in the library or totally botched a stage kiss, you were giving yourself the materials you now need as a novelist.

Eventually every one of your missteps, and every person who wouldn’t give you the time of day, will make their way into your books. And teenagers all over the world will read those books, and some will even say things like, “I love this book. Leila Sales seems really cool.” I’m serious. If you give it enough time,
teenagers will think you are cool
. It won’t be
while
you’re a teenager, but still.

So do exactly what you’re doing. Make every mistake you’re making, but also learn from them, remember them, and use them.

Two exceptions to that advice:

Do not
be so bitchy to your dad.

And
do not
blow-dry the life out of your hair every day. Your hair is curly, and it looks good curly. Forcing it to be something that it’s not isn’t fooling anybody.

Other than those two things, just carry on as you were. Mistakes and all.