Dear Past Self,

How are you? If I had to guess, I’d say you’re probably feeling angry and discouraged from another day being bullied at school. Were you bullied about your weight? Your clothes? Your interests? Maybe it was something else with which you never imagined anyone would find a problem. Whatever it was, I’ll bet the bullies got away with it, and the teacher tried to make it your fault somehow. If you tried to stand up for yourself, you were probably punished. If you cried, you were scolded. I’ll bet the teacher said something like, “You’re just too sensitive.” “You need to toughen up.” “Big girls don’t cry.” Does any of that sound familiar?

If a more understanding teacher was around when this happened, they probably said, “Don’t pay any attention to them” or “It gets better.” Sure, they mean well, but that’s not exactly helpful either. I know you’re sick of hearing those phrases repeated over and over. You’re sick of the injustice of it all. You’re sick of being misunderstood; you’re sick of the lies. Well, I’m not going to lie to you.

I won’t tell you to ignore your bullies because I know it’s useless. With a memory like ours, you won’t forget the cruel things they say, even when you wish you could. I won’t tell you it gets better because I don’t know if that’s the word I’d use to describe our life. Maybe not “better”, but it does get different. One day, you’ll leave school and experience what adult life has to offer, the good and the bad. You’ll experience so many new and important things that will make every word the bullies say seem like a drop in the bucket by comparison!

You probably have a million questions about the future. You’re probably wondering if you’ll go to a prestigious university, find love, have children, and have a high-paying job. Depending on your age, you may be dreaming of a future as a teacher, actress, or lawyer. I won’t tell you if those dreams come true because knowing you, you’d probably do something to change our history if you knew what the future holds. All I’ll say is things don’t turn out the way you planned, and that can be a good or bad thing, depending on how you look at it. You may never have an idealized, normal life, but that doesn’t mean you can’t live a fulfilling one.

When you get older, there’s an expectation that you get wiser too. Frankly, I don’t feel wise enough to give anyone advice, but I’ll do my best. I know you need it, and you got some truly stupid advice from the people who were supposed to protect you. First of all, your teachers are wrong. They’ll say you’re too smart for your own good. They’ll tell you you’ll never belong unless you hide your intellect and interests. Nearly twenty years later, I still don’t understand why they thought that was good advice to give a child! Teachers are supposed to foster learning, not stifle it. In time, you’ll see how ironic that advice was coming from them, and we can have a good laugh about it. Now all you need to know is that it was bad advice.

You do not have to dumb yourself down to get people to like you! It’s true that not everybody will understand or appreciate your intellect, but the ones who matter will. Maybe you don’t fit in with your hometown, but there’s a huge world out there, full of diverse beliefs and customs. You’ll get to experience some of it for yourself. Someday you’ll fulfill your dream of going to New York. You’ll get to shop in Times Square and see Phantom of the Opera on Broadway just like you wanted, and it’ll be even better than you dreamed! When you get there, you’ll notice something interesting. The people there have a better appreciation of the arts and pop culture than back home, and they don’t look at you like a monster because you don’t wear bright colors or a cross necklace. You may be scared at first, but you’ll get there and fit right in!

I know you don’t believe it now, but you will find your people. Your mom, dad, and grandparents will be there for you as long as they’re alive, so be kind to them while you can. One day you’ll wish you’d been kinder. You’ll have your cat for seventeen years, and he’ll be your best friend when you have nowhere else to turn. When he’s gone, you’ll find new friends, both animal and human, to help you navigate life’s ups and downs. Your neighbors will always have your back, and while your extended family may not fully get you, they’re good people. Best of all, you’ll find a new friend and father figure in the most unlikely place, and he’ll help you find your true purpose in life.

All the things that you’re bullied for now (your intelligence, interests, emotions, etc.) will eventually lead you exactly where you’re supposed to be. Trust your instincts, and enjoy the ride!

Dear Beth,
I know you’ve recently started going by Beth. From what I remember, you didn’t expect it to stick. It stuck. If there’s one thing people love, it’s a shortcut. An excuse to shave off a few syllables is always appreciated by the working man. After enough years, hearing someone use your full name has become with the wrong person, uncomfortable, and with the right person, intimate.
That boy you keep telling you’re going to marry him? You won’t. You already know that. He doesn’t. Eventually you’ll learn that your nasty habit of telling everyone what you think they want to hear is actually quite cruel. When you’re 18 you’ll break his heart, as well as your own. Mercilessly, you’ll do it over the phone. 3 years drowned into static.
You’ll move out as soon as the first semester of college rolls around. You never thought you’d make it out of that house. Without a word to your parents, you packed boxes and hid them in the basement. Short dresses and posters folded tight in cardboard boxes printed with tequila labels. You got them at the liquor store for free. It’s the first time you get to decorate a room for yourself. Your first night alone, you don’t go to sleep until 3 am. You’re buzzing much too loud. You walk through the courtyard while it’s dark just because you can. It’s the first time you don’t feel as though your life is held down by nails and boards. Finally, you can breathe without consequence, without permission. You start making mistakes at a neck-breaking-speed. It doesn’t matter how miserable you get, you are free to make yourself miserable. You’ll look back on it later and recognize it as bleeding at your own hands, but will only regret some of it.
Covid will come and take everything from you. It will rip the frames off your walls and drag you back to your parents. You don’t kick. You don’t scream. You return to your kneel, your hands find themselves clasped once more. Foolishly, optimistically, you think it will only be a minute. Get comfortable in that position as soon as you’re able.
You leave again. You work 3 jobs during a pandemic and still only make $250 above your rent. You cry about money. A lot. You spend a year apologizing for not being able to afford birthday gifts, christmas gifts. Self-checkout at the nearest grocery store has a slot for coins. You learn to live off quarters and dimes. You never once ask to borrow money. Your room is a shoebox. Your roommates are insane. The first time you have a boy over, he kills a roach on the wall of your bedroom with his shoe. Humiliating. You get a better job. You move again. You manage. You save up.
Beth, you leave.
You run away to Alaska.
A flight across the country lands the furthest you’ve ever been from anyone and anything you’ve ever loved. It is the most scared and the most alive you have ever felt. You are going to meet people who grew up in the mountains, who make lavender wine in their living rooms, and play instruments the size of them. You are going to swim in hot springs, and ride dog sleds, and dip your feet in rivers full of salmon. It is the first time you find yourself in love with being alive. You are there for four months, before Money–the hound–is back, chasing after you again. You get home and never stop talking about it. Your time there has become somewhat of a limb to you, synonymous with your physical being. You endure the 15 hour transit to visit and revisit at least once a year.
You will come back and meet the worst person you have ever loved. You thought Alaska taught you about mountains, but there is nothing steeper than the distance between how deeply loving he is sometimes, and how terribly he makes you feel most times. He is a hurt boy dressed in a grown man’s temper. You sympatheize. You cannot stay. Unfortunately, you still love him when you leave.
For a long time you mourn the years you lost on him. You are more angry with yourself for staying than you are with him for hurting you. But you recall a quote you’ve read. You understand you came from a house on fire. You have learned to forgive yourself for not running when you smelled smoke.
You give yourself time alone. You pour into yourself. You become unrecognizable.
It used to be so hard to get a word out of you. Now no one can get you to shut the fuck up. You tell people off like it’s your god-given right, you flip off strangers in bodegas, you yell obscenities across the street. You’ve learned to stop making excuses for people. The word “No” has never met a tongue it had an easier time rolling off of. You speed walk in miniskirts, and listen to music as loud as you can stand it. But you’ve learned to stop drinking until the lamppost lights have blurred into a river. You’ve learned to stop taking everything handed to you with your left hand when there’s a glass in your right. You are in the process of learning to love someone without centering your life around them. You have oysters once a week and buy flights several times a year. You’ve crossed off 18 countries. You’ve had chocolate croissants in patisseries employing the rudest staff, shared pupusas on the side of the road with dogs, been gifted bitter burnt coffee by someone who could barely afford to share a cup. You’re not scared of hour-long drives anymore. You’re in the process of exploring the country you’re from in a car that barely runs. You’ve almost died in national parks and oceans. You’ve had the time of your life on wine tours, suckered and left bedded on grass drinking on honeysuckle flowers. You’ve lost your voice and bled into cowboy boots at music festivals.
You’ve been tempted to quit school, but there’s too much lucrativity in asking someone on a couch, “how does that make you feel?”. You only have a few semesters to go anyway. You will be graduating late, but you’ve lived a lot of life at this point. That’s been your justification. Then again, the only person giving you a hard time about it is yourself.
All you think about is cooking. You bake on the weekends, and spend too much money on groceries, and when you have a hard time telling someone that you’ve grown to love them, you simply invite them over for dinner. You work 40 hours a week while you’re in school. You make vanilla lavender lattes with nutmeg, and spiced toffee mochas, and rose lychee matchas, and everyone is always asking how in the world you come up with this stuff. You are always receiving flowers.
By the way, your current bedroom is HUGE. You were so scared you’d be in a roach infested shoebox forever and now you have a bed you can fit 5 people on. Not for a lack of love, but you used to kill every cactus that looked your way. Now your apartment is brimming with plants. You’re running out of room but it smells incredible.
You get a new tattoo or piercing every few months but you still cry at blood tests. Every nurse you’ve ever met thinks you’re ridiculous. You’ve sprained both your hips, and had a kidney infection that almost took your life. The subluxations in your back still ache every day. But at least your migraines have gone away for the most part.
You don’t talk to your parents anymore. You kiss girls. You’re rude to boys. You’re very rarely afraid because, whatever the situation, you’ve already been at a worse place at a worse time. You’re usually toting your hot pink bottle of mace anyway. You are so happy. So brilliantly happy. Life is still occasionally shitty, and you’re in a new conflict at least 3 times a week. Yes, there are still days you don’t get out of bed until 6 pm. You don’t care. You are so happy. And eventually you will get here and you will understand that you are meant to feel all of those feelings. You wouldn’t have the capacity for grief and sorrow and pain if it weren’t a part of the human experience. Someone taught you years ago how about the concept of an open heart center: that experiencing every inch of bad expands your ability to feel the good. God, you are so happy, it is sickening.
Elizabeth, take care of yourself. Make all the same choices, choose all the same mistakes. I love where I brought you. I know you will be so grateful for everything I have done for you.

Sincerely,
Us

Dear Teenage Self
There are many things I wish to tell you. You need to ask for help it’s not a sign of weakness or failure. Everyone needs it now and then. My young self I know you need it. You were never a burden you are loved. But you have to start loving yourself by accepting your complexion you are a black woman who needs to own it and your hair may be a pain but it is yours. Learn to work with it you will learn to love it. Don’t let people convince you any differently about Who You Are. Deep down you truly know don’t shy away from it. Of course, it is scary and unsure but you need to be bold.
Friends will come and go some friends become more and that will break your heart but it will mend again. Stay true. Let love in even if it doesn’t last those feelings are something worthy of experiencing. You go through trials with your friend but in the end, it will make you both strong and set healthy boundaries. You also be gifted a friend who will hold you down when you need the most. These two hold a significant value in your heart don’t be afraid to tell people you love them. Allow them in you won’t scare them away.
You hold so much within gotta learn to let it out. Regrets have been had that is okay hold on to those. But move forward and try not to have much more in your life.
I need you to be strong. I need you to be better at procrastinating. Follow your gut and that damn heart those two come hand in hand.
A couple of reminders you are a black beautiful woman. Dress however you see
fit. Date who you wish to date whether man or woman. Stand strong in your convictions always be you.

Mija, we’ve always known that something wasn’t right with the world, but before you shave your head and draw on your brows, find solace in your beautiful, brown skin. I know that when you walk down the street it’s with a scathing hardness you wear like a badge of honor. I know that your scowl is self preservation so people know not to fuck with you, but Mija, they always will. Before you make plans to fight the homegirl that took one too many cigarettes from your pack, think about why you smoke in the first place. We know it’s to help calm the rage inside you but where is it directed at this point in time? Is nicotine your savior because you can’t stand listening to our anti-feminist dad spew religious nonsense at you for being ‘gay like your mom’, like he isn’t the reason we live on the streets when it’s not his weekend? Maybe it’s for our manipulative Mother, promising time and time again a stable place to live while she caters to the whim of a partner that doesn’t show up for her? Or is it because it’s the one thing you have in common with mom’s abusive girlfriend to keep calm before the domestic storm? Could it just be that you like your weed and Adderall to have a companion, because you know how loneliness cascades?

Mija, make sure you give our little sister a kiss before you sneak out to hustle and sling at the punk show. Promise her you’ll take her to the library to get her next meal. Did you ever stop to think it strange how drugs are more easily available than food, to people like us? How even the public library that offers free meals to youth on weekends, never once drew you in to feed you knowledge? But there is kindness in the eyes of those that see you as more than a dirty southside kid; The Paleta man that gives you an ice cream, and sometimes a buck or two, or your art teacher that believes your talent for drawing will help you heal. Always be grateful and give to others in any way you can, because if you deserve liberation, so do they.

Mija, when you grow, you will heal, so hold on. Keep drawing pretty pictures, laugh boisterously, listen to Sinéad and Fiona and cry, move across the country, move across the country AGAIN, make countless mistakes, always be weary of who you buy drugs from, get sober, HEAL. And above all, continue to not listen to adults because they don’t know shit.
Mi Hija,
I know,
I know,
I know,
how much you hurt.
I know,
I know,
I know,
what causes your pain.
I know,
I absolutely fucking know,
Because you are my daughter
and I am yours.