What advice would you give to your teenage self?
I haven’t been a teenager for a very long time. Over twenty years have passed since I had high expectations of what my life may be. I think back to what my life goals were and how much pressure I put on myself in some areas, and how I let the world pass by in others. Sometimes I wish I had more guidance on real life struggles rather than the obsessive thought process of college. However, none of that compares to the conversation I would have loved to have had with my fifteen-year-old self.
I would love to hold her and tell her to let go of all her pain. She is beautiful and the pain she feels daily will one day fade away. That she isn’t crazy or a hypochondriac, the doctors that she’s been going to have been awful. Instead of doing the research, they were lazy and failed her. But her mother never did. She needs to appreciate how much her mom does, spending many days off in and out of the doctors trying to find out why her daughter’s body is attacking itself.
I would tell her to watch for her brother. He’s suffering in his own way. He bottles up his emotions and releases them in the only way his brain can process. What you do for your four years of high school pulls him from his dark place. But keep doing that in college. You don’t want to lose your bother. Thankfully, you don’t. However, you won’t find out until years later you came close to it.
Your older cousin becomes more than that. She fills the void of an older sister. One that you are so desperate to fill. Even though she is 16 hours away, she becomes your best support throughout all the emotional struggles you go through as a young adult. Virgina becomes your solace and eventually you two travel the world with each other. Yes, you have friends outside of blood, but you will be so surprised by how close you two become.
You are about to meet two of your closest friends in high school. You’ll spend four years studying film in high school, then go to college, and eventually work together before she moves to Virginia. Instead of mourning your loss, you two make plans to spend your summers together, because, as fate would have it, somehow you both end up working in education. Your other friend will also be by your side in college, though she drops out. Your kids have grown up with each other, or as much as you can, for having three kids in sports. P.S., that’s like the hardest thing about being an adult.
The bond you make with another you’ve shared the same name with since first grade is out of a pain no one should endure. Fail first marriages, abuse, rebuilding one another. Nevertheless, there is something to be said about this. Alex’s are strong. We are tenacious. We are crazy but support each other.
You will meet two people in college, one male, one female in the strangest of places. The male you meet at a hookah bar during an open mic night. He now knows your innermost secrets and you torture him daily about finishing editing your writings. He is your best friend outside your husband who we will get to in a minute. Your female friend becomes your other half. You met her at a gymnastic studio and bond over how annoying children are when they are trying to kill themselves on a balance beam.
Lastly, love. Don’t worry about love. Don’t search for love. I want to tell you to avoid all the pain that I have gone through. But that pain has made us strong. It has made us reliant. Those dark moments give us the ability to bond with the man who gave you your first kiss. He reaches out to you after what feels like a lifetime. You don’t know it then, but you’ve saved him. He was going to eat a bullet, but the universe stopped him when you said “Hi” thirteen years later.
Actually, your friendship has saved many people. You never give up on those who are diving into the darkness. You are that annoying friend who won’t let people wallow in their misery and that’s sort of passed on to teaching.
So 15-year-old Alex… hold your breath. Shit is about to get real.
