Conversations with My 13-Year-Old Self

Yesterday, while hammering away at contracts and amendments at work, I flipped my Ipod onto random shuffle. One of the songs that began to play was the above-mentioned song by Pink. A powerful tribute to self-help and self-healing, the song talks about the singer turning back the clock to give herself advice at a much younger and difficult age. While I have heard this song many times before, for some reason it really struck a cord yesterday. What if we really could somehow turn back the clock to afford the opportunity to advise ourselves? What would our older selves say? Would our younger selves listen? 

 

With an apprehensive feeling of dread, let’s turn back the clock to 1981…

 

Hello 13-year-old Joe. This is on the edge of 41-year-old Joe. I have some advice for you, and I hope you think about it all and take it to heart:

 

            -           Don’t be so afraid of everyone and everything. You have so much fear - much more fear than a 13-year-old should have. You fear being physically hurt. You fear emotional scarring. You fear being abandoned. You fear being lost. You stay awake at night… thinking about things to be afraid of. You are always afraid, and live in constant terror. 

 

I wish I could tell you why you are so afraid. But I can’t. If something horrible happened to us early, neither of us remember what it was. Yet the fear feels very real. The truth is, the world is not as horrible as you expect it to be. Can it be cruel or harsh? Yes. But there is so much love, truth and beauty out there. And because of the fear, you are shutting everything out – all the fun, all the friends, all the joy, all the love. Take a chance. Allow them to find you.

 

-           You are stronger than you think you are. You think you are weak and always on the verge of failure. Guess what – you aren’t. Are you invulnerable? Certainly not. But you have an untapped inner-strength that is stronger and tougher than you can imagine. You can and will take care of yourself quite well.

 

            -           Food is not the answer. Stop eating non-stop when you are bored. Physical activity is NOT something to be feared. Ignore the bellies on all of your uncles. You are NOT fated to look like that if you take matters into your own hands. Try yoga. Try exercise. You’ll find that you actually enjoy it AND benefit from it.

 

            -           Religion is not evil. You had a bad experience with Catholicism. There are more viewpoints than just the Catholic Church. Explore other religions. This doesn’t mean you have to commit to any one of them. But learn from each of them. You will find that the most important things are the ones that overlap and can be summed up simply as love. It really is just that simple.

 

-           Learn patience! Not just with others, but with yourself. Nobody is perfect. Not you, and not anyone else. It isn’t your job to find fault. The closest we come to perfection is art. I know you won’t believe me, but you have artistic talent. Seriously! You really do! But you have to learn to be patient. If you rush things, you will screw them up. Art is not a race. It doesn’t matter if you finish your project faster than someone else. What matters is the result. Practice art. You’ll find that you are really pretty damned good at several things that you never dreamed you’d be able to do!

 

-           Don’t set limits. When faced with a wild and wonderful opportunity, your initial instinct is to say, “Oh, I can’t do that”. You convince yourself that it is just responsible and practical to tell yourself no. The reality is, you will kill off some absolutely incredible opportunities if you keep restricting yourself. And you will regret it.

 

            -           I know you don’t understand this, and would much rather not even THINK about it, but you need to come to grips with something. The reason that you have always felt like an outsider is because you are gay. WE are gay. You think that such a thing is the end of the world. It is, in fact, no more “different” than having blue eyes in a mostly-brown-eyed classroom. The fact is, you are what you are. And when you get older, you will actually really love who you are. You have tried for your thirteen years to fit into a mold that you think other people want you to be – so much so that you have actually deceived yourself. The fact is, you cannot be someone that you are not. You can only be yourself. BE yourself. LOVE yourself.

 

            -           The most devastating virus the world has seen in ages is raging havoc right about now, and most people don’t even know it.  Tell all your friends everywhere to be safe. For goodness sake, condoms can and will save lives! There is no time to be subtle about this. This is no time to be modest or discreet. PEOPLE WILL DIE!

 

            -           Dad cares and Dad loves you. Sure, he is frustrating. Sure, the two of you just can’t seem to connect.   He is very old-world and from a different time and place. He wishes he knew how to connect to you, but he can’t. He wants to… he just can’t. While I don’t know this for sure, I think it is because deep down inside, he knows that you are gay. Heck, the whole family does. They will just never say anything until you do. I don’t think he knows how to handle it, and I think that scares him somehow.

 

I think Dad has a lot of internal conflict about you. Did he WANT to have a gay son? Heck no. But that doesn’t mean he would love you any different. Dad is the king of machismo – the big man, the entertainer, center-of-attention, head bartender, king schmoozer, con-artist, Portuguese Ricky Ricardo. He wanted to have an exact younger version of himself. Why do you think he and mom had so many kids? Why do you think it was so important to him to have a Joe Junior? But the fact is, from as early on as possible, there was no denying that you were NOT a carbon-copy. You are moderately fair-skinned. You have more of a European look than an Azorean build. You took after mom so much that he didn’t know what to make of you. And gods only know that you don’t like sports! Did this disappoint Dad? Probably in some ways. But that doesn’t mean he was disappointed in you. You just weren’t what he was expecting, and he didn’t know what to do. There is no handbook to parenthood. But don’t forget, Dad is the one who took the training wheels off your bike. Dad is the one who didn’t let you quit just because you fell and got a little scratch. Dad is the one who would not let you stop trying to ride that bike until you got it. Dad is the one who cheered when you got on the bike, started peddling and took off.  And Dad is the one who waited around for an hour or more watching you ride around, thrilled with yourself because you were actually doing it. So take the training wheels off of your life. You are ready to fly!

 

“I wish you well…I wish you well, until we meet again, my little 13 year old me.” – Pink.