12 years too late

Dear 14-Year-Old Me,

You know the line in that A. A. Milne poem Mom always recites: “But now that I’m six I’m as clever as clever, so I think I’ll stay six for ever and ever?” It’ll be another four years before you really understand why that’s ironic and funny. There are so many things I wish you knew that could speed that process along.

First of all, stop weighing yourself every day. Your weight has no bearing on literally anything! It does not tell you if you are healthy or happy. It does not determine your desirability. Despite your intelligence, you really are dense when it comes to your body. It will take years of extreme examples but eventually you’ll see how valuable it is, how capable, how beautiful. You’re body is not a project; it is a tool. With it you will taste the world! And explore the most incredible places on the strength of your own legs. You will make lifelong connections with wonderful people because your tongue can make new sounds and your hands can reach out and touch new hands. Dancing will always give you joy. (But your suspicions were correct: Poms squad isn’t dancing. Quit now.) When you reach your twenties, you will be your heaviest. You will also be your strongest. Your muscles will show and it is really sexy.

So, please, stop comparing yourself to everyone around you. It’s a habit that only makes you miserable, wastes time, and accomplishes nothing. The people you admire the most are confident and self-contained. You can be that person, but first you must banish that horrible habit of positioning yourself in the Pretty Pecking Order every time you walk into a room.

You are aging prematurely. Some of it you can’t help: you look older so people treat you accordingly. They are unwittingly stealing part of your childhood, but that doesn’t mean you have to give the rest away! Despite the examples you see around you, stress is not a status symbol for most of the world. I know you feel that if you’re not overwhelmed then you’re not doing it right, but that mentality is so dangerous. Play more. Do more creative activities. Trust your instincts about what you think your priorities should be. Also, sleep more. You’ll have more energy to engage with the world when you get more than four hours a night.

Also, when your bitchy sophomore math teacher pulls you aside and yells at you for not wearing a bra, you have every right to tell her to shove her brainwashed, misogynistic bullshit where the sun don’t shine. She should be yelling at pervy Nathan for trying to look down your shirt, not you.

And stop telling yourself you’re not a math person. It’s a cop out too many young women feel comfortable using. You have to work harder at math than most of your classes but that doesn’t mean you don’t understand it. Just admit you enjoy it when you get it. Your math teachers are going to suck all through high school (which won’t always excuse your bratty behavior), so it’s going to be up to you to take initiative. Admit you need to work hard at it and admit when you need help.

Ask more questions! You’re too afraid of looking dumb to learn anything so you’re not. You “earn” good grades but you are not a very good student. You’re going to a state university in the Midwest. Maybe if you knew that you would stop worrying about the state of your transcript and actually engage with your classes. Besides, you will learn the most outside of school. If you ask questions, you’ll absorb even more of the lessons that really matter. No one cares about your GPA if you can’t be useful.

Oh, yeah. Which reminds me. You attach your self-worth to your performance, which for the first 23 years of your life means your grades. And that is setting you up for a tough transition after school. In fact, you’ll try to grade yourself in those first few months of adult life, which won’t go well because you will be a waitress. And you won’t be good at things anymore. And you are not good at not being good at things. (This is still a work in progress…) Hey, surprise! You’re fallible! It’s something you’ll admit to the world but not yourself. You’ll get plenty of reminders, but you won’t get used to it.

As for your sexuality, I know the messages are overwhelming. Right now you highly value your virginity. You don’t even realize it and if you did, you wouldn’t understand why or where it came from. In college, you’ll blame Disney and Christianity. But ultimately, that’s not why you’ve embraced virginity as a virtue. It’s because you’re not ready to have sex and you don’t feel powerful enough to say that. It’s okay if you need this outward justification to protect yourself, but I wish you could trust the validity of your own voice. You won’t “lose it” until your twenty. And it will be great! Because you were ready. You like to create rules and boundaries for yourself, which is fine because that summer you will learn to throw them away in an instant when they no longer serve you.

Also, your suspicions at summer camp when you were 13 were correct. You are totally into women. And it’s awesome. In fact, everything you think you understand about sexuality, monogamy, and healthy relationships right now will be turned on its head in the next ten years. Look forward to it.

Finally, that experience you’ll have when you’re 17—I’m sorry I can’t stop it. It will leave its scars but you’ll learn a lot: you’ll learn not to drink and smoke pot simultaneously; you’ll learn to keep your shoes on; you’ll learn lessons you thought you already knew and that will make you angry at yourself and shameful. But IT WAS NOT YOUR FAULT. It was his fault. And his fault. You did not ask for it. It happened to you. I wish you wouldn’t be so afraid to talk about it, to admit it, because it is, sadly, not only your story. You share it, in silence and humiliation, with many of your female friends and contemporaries. When you are ready, honor your anger while also recognizing that those young men were insecure and shamed into sexual predatoriness by a culture that values male aggressiveness. Everyone was a victim that night.