a letter to my twelve-year-old self

 

We’re eight months away from turning twenty, and whenever something significant, or even mildly significant, happens, I keep thinking back to the past version of me who was pretty lost and raging at life — the past version of me that was you. I think you deserve a recap by now; maybe a touch of hope.

(Maybe I need to remember these things too, and that’s why I’m telling you, because otherwise it would feel too silly to just tell my present self these things. Like a pep talk, but less cliché, I suppose. I hope.)

I’m rediscovering my love of writing. It’s been about two years since I started writing again, and up to now it’s mostly been poetry, but I’m hoping to change that too. Fanfiction and prose and screenplays, maybe a novel someday. Definitely a memoir: it’s on my bucket list. I’m glad we’ve been keeping a diary since we were nine. We haven’t always been a consistent diarist, it’s true, but it’s helped me remember past versions of me like you more clearly. 

You probably think that you’ll never write again, or something dramatic like that. I know you planned That Story out so carefully, and you poured yourself into it, and you prayed for life to line up just like that… but you already know what I’m talking about, don’t you? Better than me, I’m sure, so who am I to give advice? I’ve spent the last seven years trying to get as far away from that shattered dream as possible, and start fresh. You probably hate the state of things right now, and you have a right to. We’ve had a lot of disappointments in life, when it turns out less than ideal, but the one piece of encouragement I can give is that we idealists have a strange and horrible resilience to disappointment, because as quickly as dreams can be broken, we can build a new one right back up again. It’s not as bad as you think it is right now.

But I’m not here to offer advice or foreshadowing like they do in time-travel fiction. Why is it that in stories when people’s past and future selves interact, the past self always wants to know what will happen to them? And then sometimes the future self tells them? Well, don’t worry, I won’t do that to you. I’m no advice giver anyway; there’s so much I’m unsure of. 

(Even if I did, maybe there would be some sort of multi-dimensional paradox that would prevent either of us from remembering our interaction, but screw it, I’m no physicist and neither are you, and we probably never will be, so there’s that. Here we are, waffling into what-ifs again like we always have. I rather like that about us. Some people wouldn’t even think to consider a what-if. And let me tell you, seeing how absurd reality is is one of the best ways to balance out that other rose-tinted point of view we’re prone to.)

So I’ll tell you about myself instead. That’s one thing we can do: be a storyteller. Couldn’t escape that side of us if we tried. 

We haven’t “made it” yet. But hey, you’ll be happy to know we’ve come pretty far. You’ll see the girl onstage and wonder if that can possibly be you, but it is. You’ll see the 2nd place trophy and the medals hanging off the corner of my bulletin board, and the emails from the top drama schools in London, and wonder how we possibly achieved all that, but we did. Yes, I know, there are people out there who became child stars at five and didn’t even have to apply anywhere, but considering our circumstances, I’ll bring out my inner optimist (she’s been a bit ignored lately) and admit we have done some amazing things. Doing something out of sheer love and desire and knowing that’s why you did it is pretty satisfying. 

(I think maybe they tell actors that you’ll face a lot of rejection to toughen them up, maybe tell people that the talent pool allows for a little more selectiveness than the casting choices for their high school play, but screw it, we never did a high school play, so we just have to know we’ll get a lot of no’s without having had a lot of yeses first, and that’s okay, we know what it’s like to have life tell you no.)

Contrary to popular belief (i.e. our belief), cutting your hair short when you have curly hair is not a disastrous idea, and for us it worked out wonderfully. We’ve done it several times now — and we’ve dyed it too. I know you’re fixated on having auburn hair, and well, we’ve gotten rather close to it a couple of times. We have cowboy boots, and wide brimmed felt hats (the stylish kind) and overalls, and a trench coat, and no, we don’t wear them all at the same time! Give me some credit; I know our mom keeps pushing us to be adventurous with clothes, but we still have some common sense on how to match things. We still wear glasses, unfortunately, but I’m hoping to change that soon. Just to have a break every now and then.

We’ve gotten so much better at piano, and we can sing, and we’re learning ukulele. And our sister’s not the only one who writes songs anymore, I’ve written a few as well; just starting to dip my toes into the waters, but it feels good. 

We’re eight months away from turning twenty, and I feel childish and ancient; just starting to truly live and already having lived so much. I’ve managed to make a few milestones, set a few records, a few precedents. 

I go about my life and wonder what you would think of me if you saw. Would you be proud? Confused? Blink as you try to recognize this new self? You’re probably confused about yourself now — I think that will never go away for us — but I think you’ll be able to recognize this version of us. Maybe even all the versions of us, the ones I haven’t met yet.

So many times, I think back on a time when we were imagining what we’d look like in ten years or so, and what I see in the mirror is not too far off. There’s a small comfort in that.

She’s a little like what you imagined she’d be, but honestly, I think she’s even better.