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| We were merely freshmen. |
You're 14. You're a freshman in high school. I'm 18 years older now. I guess at your age, I would have said I'm officially old. Doesn't feel that way, kiddo, but I'm okay with it.
Look at you. All dewy and verdant. I remember you sometimes. I want to tell you some things about the next few chapters in your story. But before I start, I need you to know something: It's going to be okay. As Rollo May (you'll learn about him in a few years) says, "One does not become fully human painlessly."
This year? You'll move to the Quentin Street house with the family. You'll read the Iliad and not really understand any of it. You'll meet this guy and date him for the next two years. You'll ride your bike everywhere and feel so free, go to church twice a week, run on the track team, and listen to good music. You'll sit on the pedestrian walkway over I-35 and watch the sun rise over Wichita. You'll go on late-night drives in the country with Justin. You'll be generally accepted, but sorta on the outskirts of the popular crowd. You'll still be self-conscious about your family's socioeconomic status, and you'll limit some of your social interactions as a preemptive defense now and for the next decade or so (sorry about that - I'm still working on it). You'll do alright academically. You'll be spontaneous and funny and living life.
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| Junior Year |
Next year, things will get a bit tougher. Your grandma will get lung cancer. School will demand more of you. You'll get a job at Christmas as Santa's Helper at Towne East Mall and, as it turns out, Santa is a creepy old man who always tells you to come into the dressing room when he's not dressed.You'll run track again, and go to church all the time.
And then your brother will start college, and your boyfriend will move away to college and date other girls, and your mom and step-father's marriage will start to unravel, and you'll start to become aware of things happening that you don't deserve. You'll be discombobulated at a foundational level. You'll disconnect. Miss school a lot. Get kicked out of the honor society and told by a panel of teachers you admired that they question your character. You'll start dating Jonathan (future husband), which will be one of the best things to happen in your life. He and his family will keep you grounded and provide a center that you really need, and thankfully you'll accept it.
But, there is abuse. That's what it is, Chelsea. It's not something you invited. It's not something you want. It's in no way helping you. It's not your fault. You won't know what to do. You'll spend so much time trying to figure it out, alone. I wish I could hold you and help you. I wish I could keep you safe. You deserve that. Did you know that? You deserve to be watched. To be kept safe. To be held. But that won't happen for you right now, and I'm sorry it won't, but know that this part won't last forever.
Even though it will end... Your lights will dim after this, and I hate to say it, but they'll be dim for the next 16 years. Your ebullience will be tempered. People will describe you as quiet, withdrawn . Sometimes, even bitchy because you're so far inside yourself that it's hard to read you. You'll function. You'll pour your focus into academics and go to college and grad school for almost 12 years. You'll find that whenever you tell yourself you absolutely couldn't do something, you have to try whatever it is. So you'll run two marathons and never get Bs, have two kids in grad school, earn a PhD. You'll search relentlessly for meaning and self-worth in academic achievement, and you'll get a taste of it there, but it'll never satiate.
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| Hiking the Rockies |
You won't be able to do life alone, but you'll need to keep learning that lesson for a long time before you start to catch on (that's where we are now, Chelsea, starting to catch onto the idea that no man is an island... I told you it'd take a long time). You'll awaken with a sense of curiosity. You'll awaken with a blinding fear of disappointing others and being rejected. You'll be completely overcome by life - the good and the bad. And you, beautiful, bright, proud, devoted Chelsea, you'll get to this place where everything is dark and crowded and lonely. You'll do another thing you never thought you'd do and add "committed to the psych ward" to your list of life experiences. You'll learn again, and again, and again, how much you need other people. How you're part of the fabric of your life.
I want to wrap my arms around you right now. I want to encapsulate your buoyancy and tenacity. But, of course, I can't. I wonder if you're afraid, reading this. It's a lot. It's good and bad. And it's yours. No one else has this story. No one's had quite this constellation of experiences. So as much as I'd like to scoop you up and hold you and drink hot tea and camp in the mountains for the next decade or so, that's not how you get where we are now. And where we are now? It's stunning. It's the slow, sometimes painful, sometimes invigorating, convergence of all these experiences. It's a process. You have so many people in your life, loving you, and you're loving them right back. You find more beauty around you. You settle in to your strengths and start a business (another one of those "never going to do that" things) and trust that you can work with others as they make real and lasting changes. You have meaning and hope and the faint whisper of trust that things really, truly, will be ok.
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