an open letter to my thirteen year old self

Dear thirteen year old me,

Hey. We're still here.

I wanted to tell you a few things. Things I wish I could travel through time to tell you in person. I'd find you in the woods, our sanctuary. You probably wouldn't recognize me now, but I would know you. You'd stare at me from behind the glasses you despise, your hair sloppily highlighted with a homemade kit. You'd be wearing something that arrived at the house in a large black garbage bag stuffed full of clothes. Something happier, wealthier people dug out of their closet and contemplated throwing away. Instead they donated it to charity. That's you. You're their charity.

I'm sure what you're wearing is something straight from the early 90's. I know you only have a couple outfits that are "cool" enough to keep the other kids from mocking you. And you can't waste your good clothes on the woods. The trees don't care what style of jeans you're wearing. I know. I get it.

Outwardly, we look nothing alike. Inwardly, we haven't changed a lot.

That's probably weird to you, right? I mean, to you, it would look like I have my shit together. Like I grew up and learned how to wear our hair and conquered contacts. I know you were hoping that someday things would be better, and I will tell you that in a lot of ways, they are.

You're crying, right? That's why you're out here. To cry. Because you feel like you're drowning. So you escape to the place where no one can see you so you can cry and cry and cry. Maybe our mother said something to you, maybe one of your friends did. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it's just that crushing sadness that labels you as "melodramatic" and "ridiculous."

You pray every night to a silent God that someone new will move to this tiny town. Someone who could be your friend. But no one does. The people you once called friends laugh at you and run away. You have never felt so alone.

I'm here to tell you that things get better. See, sometimes I forget that myself. I get stuck in my own head in the here and now, and I can't see any light at the end of the tunnel. Everything is dark. The darkest black. The kind where your eyes never adjust, the kind where you just stay blind.

So I wanted to come back to this moment. This time. Because things get better. They really do.

I have friends that have become family. They love me for who I am. They are there for me when I fall, and I have fallen hard. They stick with me, even after they discover all the ugly things in my head. They don't leave.

I know your heart longs for love. I know your dreams of love feel hopeless, but keep dreaming, little sad girl. You will meet him. He even has the curly hair you love. And eyes so blue, they look like the summer sky. He will make you laugh. He will kiss you so gently, that night he asks you to be his girl. He will cry when you walk down the aisle in your wedding dress. He will hold you when your entire world is falling apart and you have no idea how to put it back together. He will tell you every day that you are beautiful. That he loves you. That you are perfect.

Things get better.

But they also fall apart.

You can only bend so far before you break. And you will break. You know this. We knew for a long time that someday we would break. Somewhere in the back of our mind we waited in anticipation and terror.

But I promise, no one will leave you. No one will run in the other direction. And there is a beauty in that. When the pieces of your life are scattered around you in sharp, ugly shards, the people you love will be right there, helping you pick them up.

So maybe this is a two way street. I wanted to tell you that things get better, but I needed you to tell me the same thing. Things get better. We will get better. We will be ok.

Keep going little sad girl. Keep going.

Love,

Me