On My 50th Birthday, a Letter to Myself at 17

[sheshe2]

I see you at 17 -- feathered hair, parachute pants, asymmetrical smile. You have just graduated from high school. Despite your outward ebullience, I see that, beneath the jocular façade, you are so very sad. Of this you are (mostly) unaware.

I see the reason for your sadness: twelve years of institutionalized bullying -- pervasive, relentless. I am touched by the exquisite coping skills you've cultivated, the exaggerated belief in your own exceptionalism that you use like armor to guard against painful things, made to measure to compensate for what is being denied you or taken away.

I see the cruelty of children: They throw food at you, but you keep walking; they punch you in the back, but you keep singing. When you did a jazz dance to Pat Benatar's "Hell Is for Children" wearing a burgundy leotard, the entire school laughed as one, but you kept dancing. You confronted the principal's office like Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich when some creep lit your locker on fire; I'm laughing at your indignant reaction when the principal told you the school bore no responsibility because the conflagration could have been the result of "spontaneous combustion." Despite feeling humiliated, you looked him in the eye -- well, glared at him -- and, holding your melted acrylic winter coat, you hissed, "We both know full well my locker 'spontaneously' combusted when someone threw a lit match in it! I demand this administration's accountability, and I will see that I get it."

Sanctioned abuse is what it was -- and you stood your ground with your own unique brand of defiance. So many who were less flinty became terribly introverted or disappeared entirely. When I see you at 17, I am filled with admiration. You may be a shame-filled Show Tune Sally, but you are no less a warrior for the legwarmers.



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