Dear Adolescent Ginger

I was organizing a hall closet the other day (it's part of my "nesting" as I prepare for Timon to come - I did the same thing before Douglas was born).  I found a box of old pictures and took a trip down memory lane.  I felt like I was looking at a different person - someone familiar, but not myself.  I recognized that girl, and so many memories came into my mind as I flipped through the pictures - both good and painful ones.

I was a super emotional kid.  I think all kids who are artists at heart are extra emotional - the ones who are touched by nature, love music and photography and writing and literature and poetry...you know the ones.  I think these kids have something beautiful because they are able to see the world in a way that the more right-brained people of the world can't quite see it.  And they see more of the beauty because of that.  They also feel the pain more intensely, I think.  I am one of these people.  All teenage girls are dramatic and angst-ridden, but I seemed to fare a little worse than some at times.

Don't get me wrong - I have so many amazing memories from those years...times of so much laughter and excitement and fun.  But underneath it all there was this ache.  And much of it was the ache that is common to all teenagers - the ache to belong, to be loved, to be valued, to be special.  I cringe at the thought of our kids reaching adolescence because I can't stand the thought of them struggling with not loving themselves.  Or the thought of them feeling all alone or "less" or "not enough."

Looking at pictures from highschool got me thinking.  I wish I could have just known then what I know now.  What fun I would have had!  How much freer I would have been!  Like many (though not all) teens, I wasn't very good at taking long-term consequences seriously.  I literally remember thinking, "I know tanning beds are probably bad for me and I'll probably look like hell when I'm older, but I don't care.  I want to feel pretty right now and I'm willing to sacrifice the future for this right now."  This is where parents come in - to try to provide some long-term perspective to the madness of a child who's unable to live anywhere but right here, right now.  My parents tried - they did.  But you can only do so much.

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If I could go back in time, this is what I would tell Adolescent Ginger:

PUT THE MASCARA DOWN, Sister-Friend! You are beautiful. You don't need 17 layers of that crap on your lashes to look hot. Go to the grocery store without makeup. Stop hiding. Let yourself be comfortable in your own (beautiful) skin.  What are you so afraid of?

Get out of the tanning bed. Seriously. Get out now, take off your little heart-shaped sticker, and run like hell away from there. It is a lie that those things are good for you. They make you look nice and tan now, which I know you love, but trust me on this one - I know you're incapable right now of having a longer term perspective and you just want to feel pretty NOW, TODAY - but please trust me that this is not a good way to be spending your time.  And you will be kicking yourself over and over again in 10 years when the dermatologist visits begin.  And, with them, words like "Superficial Basal Cell Carcinoma" and "biopsy" and "scar."  Run.  Now.

Stop worrying about how thin you are.  If you had a crystal ball and could see into the future you would see that only when you stopped obsessing with how you looked and how thin you were would you become (naturally, as if by accident) a weight that you are - most days - happy with and feel good about.  Food is not your enemy.  Diet Pills are not your friend.  You are not fat.  Stop obsessing because obsessing over not eating just makes you oober hungry all the time.  Be healthy - yes.  Work out - yes.  But do it for yourself - so that you feel good, not so that you can fit into a certain size or impress a certain someone.  Food is fuel - it is not something to be feared or controlled or mastered.  Respect it and use it to give you life and health and energy.

Do yoga.  It will help you to get comfortable in your own skin.  It will teach you that your body is strong and powerful and capable and beautiful, and it is yours - respect it.  It will help you to feel your feet grounded into the earth when you feel like you're endlessly floating.  It will teach you to love yourself which, let's face it, you're horrible at right now.  Don't feel bad about it, though, you're learning - always learning.

You are lovely and funny and beautiful and special.  And it doesn't matter what other people think of you.  You won't even know the vast majority of these people in 5 years, 10 years.  They are all afraid, too.  Everyone around you is afraid of being found out.  So they are all living in a perpetual state of insecurity, just trying to manage to not be the one who everyone's pointing at while they laugh, trying to make someone else feel out so that they can feel in.

It doesn't matter which guy likes you and which doesn't, because these guys have no idea who they are anyway.  They're just babies.  They don't know how to love anyone else yet.  They'll probably learn someday, but not anytime soon, girlfriend, so don't waste your time pining.  Just live free.  Have fun.  Know that your worth has absolutely NOTHING to do with these guys' impressions of you.  Stop looking to them to find something that they can't ever give to you.  You are beautiful and you are significant and worthwhile and loved.

Now go dance!!  Be whoever you want to be right now.  Be YOU.  Because, let's face it, you are a total ROCKSTAR and somewhere deep, deep down in there you know this.

You're doing great.  And I know you won't really believe me, but it's true - you won't always feel this way.

So much love to you, you little Rockstar, you!

Love,

30-year-old Ginger (I know, you can't BELIEVE you're going to be that old one day!)