Molten Gold

(Content Warning: mental illness, mentions of suicide, self-harm)

Dear 13-year-old Me,

You have some flaws. You’re afraid of everything and you constantly doubt yourself. You don’t know what you’re doing, and never can seem to learn from your mistakes. Friendships seem fleeting, and you just always feel really, really awkward. You’re also thirteen. This is the age everyone looks back on with a weird mixture of fondness and disgust.

Your problem is that you don’t even feel thirteen. All the other thirteen-year-olds are applying too much eyeliner and shimmying into tight jeans and throwing parties. It’s bewildering, fascinating, and torturous, all at once. You think you might like to try it too, but you just don’t fit in. More friends than you’ve ever had at any moment in your life up to this point and you still can’t seem to fit in. But it’s okay. You will be okay. All that judgment, all those harsh criticisms you hear in your head right now, will make you want to never cause another person to feel this way. Compassion will become the core by which you strive to live.

I know it’s not easy right now, and I know you’re hurting. You cried yourself to sleep the night you did that online diagnosis for depression. You were scared and lonely and hurting. And to be honest, I still feel that way sometimes. I look at Mom and Dad and wonder how much time I’ve got left with them. I look at my friends and wonder if we’ll be able to stay in touch five, ten years after graduation. I wonder how much longer until I’m finally, truly alone. But I think it’s important to remember:

We’re not alone yet. And fear can be a good thing sometimes.

For example, I know you haven’t jumped off the roof top or hung yourself because you’re afraid it will hurt. You’re afraid that it won’t kill you immediately—that you’ll suffer, scared and alone as you lay dying, wishing that you weren’t. You think you’re a coward for not going through with it. But you’re not. Some call suicide the easy way out, but if it were easy, I wouldn’t be talking to you now.

Of course, life isn’t easy, either. If life were easy, there wouldn’t be people trying to kill themselves. But even with all your flaws, and all the mistakes you’ve made, you’re still here. I’m still here. And that should tell you something:

You’re more resilient than you think you are.

Unfortunately, the summer of 2007 is going to be long and dark. It will be the summer that partially ruins every summer following as you’re thrown into an annual struggle with self-doubt. But you’ll get through this summer. And then in 2014, you’ll experience the darkest twelve months of your life. And you will get through that, too. During that period, you will have self-awareness but little control over how you feel, and that will frustrate you. You’ll learn that wrist-cutting is not the only form of self-harm. But you’ll also learn how much your friends love you, and how achingly happy a simple meal with your family can feel. These things will fuel your will to live.

Unfortunately, our mental illness may be here to stay. It’s going to get better, and then it’s going to get worse. You’re going to develop anxiety, too. And then it will get better again. It’s like watching day and night take turns in the sky. Nighttime is hard because the dark is terrifying, and the silence is both reprieve and suffocation. Right now, you’re thinking that the dark will never end.

But one of these days soon, you’re going to walk up to the roof unusually early in the morning. You’re going to go to the edge and look down at the street. Down at the fall. And then you’re going to step back and look toward the mountains. You will witness the most incredible sunrise of your life, like molten gold. This moment is all yours, only yours, to hold onto forever. That sunrise will save you for years to come. So just hold out for it.

You’re going to make a lot more mistakes and you still won’t know what you’re doing, but you’re also going to overcome what you think is impossible. You’re going to graduate high school, and probably college. You’re going to get into some of the best universities and you’re going to meet some of the best people. What’s more—you’re going to find a fairy-pink tea-length dress that will, to your pleasant surprise, pleasantly surprise everyone at prom, and you’re going to dance with your best friend. The same best friend who will skip class in junior year so she can bring you an ice cream cake for your birthday at school.

This summer, you’re going to read the final Harry Potter book. You’re also going to see a regatta on TV and think that you’d like to learn how to row. Your future stepsister will walk out on your family vacation, but she’ll come around eventually. DreamWorks is going to make one of the worst animated films ever, and then they’ll start to make some of the best. During the new school year, someone is going to make a really popular TV show about scientists who are as geeky as you, and it will revolutionize how you feel about your weird encyclopedic knowledge. Your history teacher will try and fail to hide his excitement over whispers of a first black president.

Five years from now, you’re going to vote for the re-election of the first black president, and you'll own all eight Harry Potter movies. That's right. EIGHT. You’re going to join your school's rowing team and compete for four years. You're going to try ballet at a late age and be kind of terrible at it. You’ll take up fencing just for the heck of it. You’ll learn how to speak Russian. Yes, Russian. Because the women’s college you chose over your giant dream university will encourage you to challenge yourself. You’ll shake like a Chihuahua when you raise your hand in a lecture hall of a hundred students, but the professor will appreciate your insight. You’ll still suck at painting and tennis, and you’ll drop out of your engineering degree just as you start it. But one day you will, confidently, call yourself a writer.

One day, you will have confidence. You’ll even be kind of funny. Once in a while, you’ll stop and realize that you’re kind of happy. And that’s surprisingly good enough. People often feel pressure to be perfectly happy always, but happiness is not always perfect—nor does it need to be. Sometimes, it is experienced as unbridled joy. Sometimes, in spite of an emptiness.

When you finally emerge from this dark period, it won’t feel like a victory. There will be some relief, a little rest, and a slow recovery, and then eventually the muscles will start to ache in a good way. Have patience, and remember to be gentle with yourself. Since you’re thirteen, you’re going to go back to school and try to navigate teen-hood. I’m going to go finish school and try to navigate adulthood. I’m less ambitious and a lot more tired than you are, but my excitement to move forward has not changed. This is because I am content with what I see when I look back. Because the life I wanted to cut short on many occasions turned out to be something worth cherishing. And I still want to make the most of my life, perhaps now more than ever.

I’m sorry that I haven’t written this letter to instruct you to do anything differently. I don’t have any answers, even in retrospect. All I can offer is honesty, and hope. And to be honest, these will be a thrilling eight years for you, Little Me. I am glad you will be here to see them.

Hugs,

21-Year-Old You