Dear Teen Me: Authors Write Letters to Their Teen Selves (True Stories)

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

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 Christmas 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.