Regine's Book (37 page)

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.

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.

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.