Dear Teen Me

  First published in 2012 by Zest Books

  35 Stillman Street, Suite 121, San Francisco, CA 94107

  www.zestbooks.net

  Created and produced by Zest Books, San Francisco, CA

  © 2012 by Zest Books LLC

  Typeset in Asa and Corbel

  Teen Nonfiction / Social Situations & Adolescence / Biography & Autobiography

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2012905455

  ISBN: 978-1-936976-21-8

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval systems—without the written permission of the publisher.

  CREDITS

  BOOK EDITOR: Daniel Harmon

  CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Hallie Warshaw

  ART DIRECTOR/COVER & GRAPHIC DESIGN: Tanya Napier

  MANAGING EDITOR: Pam McElroy

  EDITORIAL ASSISTANT: Ann Edwards

  PRODUCTION EDITOR: Keith Snyder

  TEEN ADVISORS: Alex Idzal, Maria Charlene Sacramento,

  Marcus Dixon, Frances Saux

  Manufactured in China

  LEO 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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  All photos courtesy of the contributing authors with the exception of Jennifer Ziegler.

  Every effort has been made to ensure that the information presented is accurate. The publisher disclaims any liability for injuries, losses, untoward results, or any other damages that may result from the use of the information in this book.

  Dear Readers,

  It started with Hanson. Yes—that band from the 90’s with the three blond brothers and the hit single “MMMBop.” You can giggle all you want, but they were Emily’s obsession as a teen. Other kids picked on her for loving them, but she tried not to care, and only blushed a little when her classmates asked about the portrait of Taylor Hanson that she was working on that one day in art class. Growing up in Maine, Emily missed out on the opportunity to see Hanson live. (They didn’t tour up there until after she’d moved away.) But at 27, Emily saw them for the first time. All grown up, they rocked hard on the stage at Antone’s. It was such a rush. On the way out the door, elated to the point of slurred speech, Emily knew she had to tell her teen self about it. So she did. In a very long post on her blog.

  For her part, Miranda would talk about Star Trek with anybody who would listen when she was a kid. Unfortunately, none of her friends liked it. They considered Star Trek dorky, and this destroyed her self-esteem. It wasn’t until college that Miranda found other people who also loved Star Trek. How much would teen Miranda have loved to know that there were other people out there – great people! – who actually shared her interests?

  The internet didn’t exist back then—or at least, not like it does now. Now, kids everywhere can find friends online who share similar interests. (This is how we found each other.) When we started putting together Dear Teen Me, we wanted it to be a place for authors to share experiences with teens, so that teens would know they are not alone and that they are cared for, and that there are adults who remember what it’s like to be a teen.

  We began posting letters on December 1, 2010, and almost immediately, the site blew up. Or, at least, we felt like it did—the response was beyond our wildest expectations. We received messages from so many authors who wanted to write letters to their teen selves, to give hope and advice and direction based on what they knew now. And, even more importantly, readers were joining the chorus, saying “me too!” and “thanks for sharing!” and “you make me feel less alone.” We laughed, we cried, and we hugged (if only virtually) every step of the way. In 2011, we met the incredible folks at Zest who said, hey, let’s make a book out of this thing. This is that book.

  This book is for you. For the loners, the stoners, the freaks and the geeks, the head cheerleaders and the kids eating lunch in the library, the starting lineup, the benchwarmers, the glee club, and the marching band. This book is for everyone who has ever felt alone or misunderstood, for everyone who dreads prom and also for every teen in the homecoming court. For the wimps, the Goths, and the jocks. This book is for you.

  We hope you love it.

  Most Sincerely,

  E. Kristin Anderson and Miranda Kenneally

  WANT. TAKE. HAVE.

  E. Kristin Anderson

  Dear Teen Me,

  We spend most mornings writing in our diary. Not the fun diary that you share with friends. Not the one where you draw pictures of Hanson and Foo Fighters and analyze the Grammys. I’m talking about the one where you write about how scared you are that we’ll never find THE ONE, and about how fighting with your mom is wearing you out, and how you’re grossed out by sex, and how desperately, how insanely you want to date John O’Bleary*.

  You barely know John O’Bleary. He transferred to your school during sophomore year, and now he’s the goalie for the hockey team. The team your brother plays for. The team your dad coaches. And, yes, your dad actually told his players that if they tried to date you they’d be “riding the pine pony” indefinitely.

  But Dad would have made an exception for John. He’s different from the other hockey guys. And sometimes he and Dad talk about you on the team bus. So now you’re convinced that you and John O’Bleary are going to ride off into the sunset in whatever car he drives (like I said, you barely know him) and get married and have adorable O’Bleary babies.

  So just about every entry in your journal is about John O’Bleary. I mean, you’re probably writing about him right now, as the sun finishes coming up. I bet there’s a cup of Raspberry Zinger herbal tea cooling on your nightstand next to a half-eaten bagel slathered in cream cheese. You have a whole routine: wake up, shower, make breakfast, crawl back into bed (with your breakfast), and write in your diary. Don’t even try to deny it. You’re about to start another entry about how today is the day you’re going to talk to John.

  In fact, there are eleventy billion entries of pure O’Bleary pining. I could transcribe a page word for word, but I’d hate to betray your confidence. After all, we swore to ourselves we would never share THAT journal with anyone; we fear the damage its publication could wreak upon our impending fame. (We don’t want our adoring public to know that we’re so shallow we only ever write about boys.) Anyway, that’s what the other journal’s for: sharing fun stuff with friends and illustrating, on a frame-by-frame basis, our delusions of grandeur.

  You have a bedtime diary ritual, too. At night you crawl under the covers, pull out one of your metallic Gelly Roll pens, and woefully scribble into the same pages that you filled with hope that very morning. It goes like this:

  I didn’t talk to John today. [Insert explanation here.] I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just know that there’s something between us. There’s a reason he transferred into school when he did. And he told Dad [insert anecdote here]. Why can’t I just talk to him? I’m going to regret it if I don’t. This shouldn’t be so hard. But it is.

  Tomorrow I’m going to talk to John O’Bleary.

  And so it goes, time and time again…until: You know that dance that’s coming up? The Sadie Hawkins dance, where girls are supposed to ask the boys? (As if you haven’t asked your date to every other dance, you inadvertent feminist, you.) Well, you’re going to go up to John and ask him to go to the dance with you. Flat out. And he’s going to say that someone else just asked him—it’s a girl you’re kind of friends with, and one of the only popular girls who’s never picked on you. So you can’t even hate her. Worse still, John is so freaking nice that he asks you to save him a dance.

  You never do get that dance. But here’s the thing: you weren’t supposed to.

  I was home for Christ
mas in 2010, sitting on the sofa at Nini’s house (yes, we still call our grandmother Nini), when she announced that John O’Bleary was marrying that very same girl who asked him to the dance not half an hour before you did. And in that moment, I couldn’t help wondering what it would have been like to be Mrs. O’Bleary.

  Teen Me, don’t let this crush you. As I write this today, I can’t help but feel lucky that I’m not Mrs. O’Bleary. I’m in love right now with someone else entirely, hundreds of miles from chez O’Bleary

  But even knowing that, I still want you to ask John to that dance. You wrote in your secret journal that you didn’t want to be thirty and look back with regrets. You were sure that if you didn’t ask John out, you would always wonder, “What if?” I’m almost thirty now, and thanks to you, I have no what-ifs. So, asking John out? Yeah, I think we can say with certainty that it was a good idea. (Even though the journal entry from that evening says something like: Well, stamp an R on my forehead and throw me in the Reject bin!)

  You’re not a reject, Teen Me. You’re brave. When you think back on that moment later on, you’ll feel pride, more than anything else: pride, because you’re the kind of girl who has the cojones to ask for what she wants.

  You’re setting a high standard for yourself as an adult. For me. You already know what you want and you ask for it without hesitation. Okay, maybe with a little hesitation—the journal proves that—but I love that you dare not only to dream, but to believe in those dreams, whatever the cost. I mean, it will be about three years before you realize that you’re not going to be a rock star in this lifetime, but you’re never, ever going to be afraid to (poorly) sing karaoke. And sure, you’re not poet laureate (yet), but you’re going to publish a lot of great poems in actual magazines because you will actually put those poems in the mail and send them out into the world. And no matter how many times you get your heart broken, you’ll keep on believing in love.

  Asking John O’Bleary to the Sadie Hawkins dance was about so much more than getting rejected by the boy of your dreams; it was about setting the pace for the rest of your life. You already believe in something Faith will say on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: “Want, take, have!” And while you’re not going to use this for evil quite the way she did, you’re going to wear your heart on your sleeve and pursue impossible goals and take inadvisable risks. Because it’s the only way you know how to be you.

  But I think you’ve already got a sense of this—even on bad days, when you feel like you have eighty R’s on your forehead (like the day when you realize that, whoa, there’s no cure for bipolar disorder; or all the times when you want to hide until school, and your parents, and the mean girls disappear). Pretty soon you’re going to realize that “It works if you work it” is more than a Taylor Hawkins quote (from that new magazine Nylon). “It works if you work it” are words to live by, and you’re already on top of it. So don’t change a damn thing.

  *Name not-so-elusively changed to protect the bashful.

  E. Kristin Anderson has a fancy diploma that says “B.A. in Classics,” which makes her sound smart but hasn’t helped her get any jobs in ancient Rome. However, she did briefly work for The New Yorker. Currently living in Austin, Texas, Ms. Anderson is an assistant editor at Hunger Mountain. With Miranda Kenneally, she founded DearTeenMe.com, the blog upon which this book was based. As a poet she has been published in dozens of literary magazines all over the world. She wrote her first trunk book at sixteen. It was about the band Hanson, and may or may not still be in a notebook at her parents’ house. Look out for Ms. Anderson’s work in Coin Opera II (forthcoming), a collection of poems about video games from Sidekick Books.

  CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE

  Jessica Lee Anderson

  Dear Teen Me,

  It’s your senior year of high school, 8:00 p.m. on a Friday night. There’s a huge football game happening right now and parties are just getting started. Sadly, you’re in bed. Not because you have some illness or because you’re nursing a hangover or anything like that (though be warned: you will soon suffer the worst hangover of your life). You’re just exhausted. So very, very exhausted.

  You’ve been averaging about five hours of sleep per night—actually less with midterms and the SAT looming. Plus, you have a ton of other projects due, like that student council environmental proposal you grudgingly signed up for because it was going to look good on your college and scholarship applications. To date, you’ve filled out twenty-nine applications. You’re desperate. You want to go away to college badly, but support and finances are limited. These obstacles make you even more obsessed.

  In addition, you feel shattered after finding out that your boyfriend and best friend have started seeing each other behind your back. Yes, you’ve been crazy busy, but this is inexcusable. The betrayal makes you feel even more exhausted. Before crawling into bed, you thought about calling someone to confide in, but who would you call? Some people at school consider you “popular,” but they don’t know the real you. They only know the people-pleasing Jessica—the one who wishes everyone would like her.

  You just want to hibernate until graduation. And while you don’t physically slow down, your spirit seems to withdraw as time progresses. Days blur together from so many simultaneous responsibilities—projects, quizzes, finals, additional applications, club meetings, volunteering opportunities, etc. Plus you have to take the ACT because you choked during the SAT. Despite your ongoing exhaustion, you manage to attend a few parties and football games, but you continue with the people-pleasing façade. You let your guard down with that cute guy from advisory, but then you try to distance yourself emotionally because dating someone now isn’t part of your plan.

  Amazingly, the college acceptances start rolling in, and you receive quite a few scholarships. You’re elated—you’ve accomplished the seemingly impossible! This amazing feeling is temporary, though, and the desperation doesn’t dissipate. If anything, you put more pressure on yourself as you prepare for college and your future. I wish that your adult self—me—could intervene and tell you that it’s not right to make success your god. Unfortunately, it takes a breakdown before you’ll be able to realize this.

  You sign up for eighteen hours of classes during your first semester at college, plus join a couple of clubs and take on a part-time job. This is more than you can handle, and you’re near the point of flipping out. So when you get an opportunity to party in Mexico with some new friends, you’re all for a chance to escape. With each sip from a bottle of gin, you feel layers of your veneer cracking, and your anxiety lessening. Losing control feels good—until you completely lose it.

  Let me just say that there’s nothing like a police-escorted trip to the hospital to make you rethink your priorities. You will recover from this worst hangover of your life, and your soul will start to heal too (albeit a bit more slowly than your black eye). While there are many things you can control, you need to learn to let go in more appropriate ways. Try losing yourself on long hikes, or while writing.

  And by the way, that cute guy from advisory? You’ll marry him.

  Jessica Lee Anderson is the author of Trudy (winner of the 2005 Milkweed Prize for Children’s Literature), Border Crossing (a 2009 Quick Picks Nomination), and Calli (a 2011 Reader’s Choice Nomination). She’s published two nonfiction readers, as well as fiction and nonfiction for a variety of magazines including Highlights for Children. Visit JessicaLeeAnderson.com for more information.

  Tom Angleberger eventually discovered that he was supposed to write down all that nerdy stuff instead of saying it out loud, and now he’s the author of Horton Halfpott (2011), Fake Mustache (2012), and the Origami Yoda series.

  FRAME ME AND NAIL ME TO THE WALL

  Sean Beaudoin

  Dear Teen Me,

  Is it possible that this arty self-portrait was ever really me? When you close your eyes, you can almost smell the incense. This shot was taken before digital cameras existed. Back then film was expensive, complicated, and difficul
t to process. Remember when you got into buying old cameras at the Salvation Army and then sending away to someplace in New Jersey for obsolete types of film? It’s hard to tell if that was an inspired hobby or just the product of sheer, crushing boredom. In any case, this particular shot that I’m looking at now was taken with a 1950s Polaroid camera. (You paid three dollars for it and then ruined forty dollars’ worth of film learning how to use it.) Apparently, there’s a fine line between nerd-rock cover art and self-indulgent pretentiousness.

  First, you found some “really cool lighting” in which to linger. Then you practiced getting just the right facial expression: anguished, hip, tough, and worldly (read: non-virginal). The absurdly heavy camera sat atop the tripod that you asked for (and actually got) for Christmas. There was a thumb switch at the end of a long cord that released the shutter.

  Click. Flash. Genius.

  You laid the exposures out on the linoleum floor like a hand of solitaire, and for some reason you decided that this one was the best. How do I know? Because now it’s the only one left. How many drawers and shoe boxes and apartment closets has it sat at the bottom of? How many moves and fires and storage-space purges did it survive? In retrospect, this shot may not be the artistic breakthrough it once seemed, but there’s no question it epitomizes your guiding internal mantra that year: Things Are So Very Difficult, But I Guess I’ll Deign to Persevere.

  Also, it echoes that old Depression-era truism that “nothing truly good ever happens unless it happens under light spilled through a dirty venetian blind.”

  Teen Me, all I can say is that I miss you dearly. I miss your white teeth. Your “go ahead and dare me to cut it off” ponytail. The red Yukon suit you wore all winter as an anti-fashion fashion statement. Not to mention the vampiric longing in your expression—an expression that seems to say, at one and the same time: “I want to create!” and “I want to be famous!” and “Do I look cool from this angle?” and “Deep down I know I’m a fraud.”