Dear 45-Year Old Me-
Hello!
How are you doing? Is your hair gray? Okay, enough, shut up.
LISTEN.
I’m writing you this letter on my 18th birthday! And since it all goes downhill from here, I thought I’d just let you know what this was like.
Being a teenager, for you, was odd. It was like a rollercoaster that had miles and miles of boring, straight parts, with lots of fun noises and lights going off around you, but they were all kind of dim and it felt like they were really, really far away, but they were right next to you. And the parts that didn’t feel like that were completely and utterly extreme. And not extreme like the Mountain Dew and Doritos that are out during the time of writing. (Do you guys still have those? Or is it a nuclear wasteland where no snack can survive? Please, get back to me using one of the many public time machines you have surrounding you.) Extreme as in intense, and unforgiving. The dips of the coaster were terrible, it was cold and lonely, and you felt surrounded by fear. You’d never go up again, ever. You were stuck in this miserable existence forever, and you were even too big of a wimp to end it all.
Awesome right? Tell the wife and kids I say hey!
But the ups man… Those big fucking hills that you don’t climb as much as fly up. It was brutally warm, and loving, like flying too close to the sun, and you couldn’t see anything but colors and lights and everything, EVERYTHING was fixable and temporary. You would never be unhappy again.
And most of the time, even that was uncomfortable.
Because I don’t know about anybody else, but I know for us, your adolescent years were terribly uncomfortable. Even the happiest moments of your prime teenage years are flecked with slight embarrassing things. Hell, right now I can think of over twenty things that make my spine scrunch up to about six inches. How about when you tried to kiss Noelle Freshman year, and she declined, and you just ended up machine-gunning her face with your lips? Yeah, I hope you’ve gotten over that, but if you haven’t then you remember your balls being retracted so far inside you that you can feel them resting on your tonsils.
My point is sir, that I, right now, am on a rapid transit to where you are, or so I’ve heard. And I need us to remember this. I need us to remember launching lizards out of a hose in Tampa with Jameson. I need us to remember stepping into the shower every single day, and wishing you were anybody else’s body. (Are our tits gone? Fingers crossed, right?) I need us to remember the first time we got high, and the subsequent times that we thought would be as cool, but never quite were.
But I could go on. I mean, for instance, right now. I’m on Facebook writing you this note, and I need to get my GED, and change my brake lights, and transfer my car to my name, and blahblahblah, and to me, priorities wise, nothing could be more important than this. And I’m sure Samantha and Gravity Boots (what you were supposed to name our kids. But you fucking wimped out, didn’t you?) would really appreciate it if right now, they couldn’t even come close to conceiving the thought that school and work and cars is nearly as important as Facebook 6.0 and friends and playing grocery cart tag and spray painting and writing in their journals and eating Mexican Casserole at four in the morning, and honestly, you wouldn’t be where you are today if it weren’t for all of it. (I hope you’re not homeless. Shit, are you homeless?)
So here’s what I want you to do. If you have completely abandoned me, the eighteen-year old version of you, you need to get back to it. You like life this way! Maturity is one thing, boring is another. I doubt you’re boring. But if you’re bored, you’re boring.
And are you a writer now? I hope so. If not, why not? Is it a good reason? If the reason is money, fuck you. Who are you still friends with? You better still talk to Kyle and David. Where’s pops? Where’s mom? Where’s Jill and Dillon? Oh my God, where’s Dillon? Is he kickin’ ass and takin’ names? Does he still drum? He just taught you how to play Maps by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs the other day. How does one little tiny human being rock so goddamn hard? You should high-five him. Now, go do it. Well read the rest and then do it.
I wonder who your favorite band is. Did you switch to some old fogey shit? Yeah, you did. Probably something dad listens to like John Denver and whatnot.
Oh, and if you’re not friends with your kids, you’re a moron. Right now, at eighteen, you want to be a dad so bad. You dream about the different ways you could do it, about what kind of father you’ll be. So much so that you right notes to your future self to keep it in check! Kinda gay by the way, why are we such nerds?
Let’s do favorites. Right now your favorite bands are The Aquabats and Reel Big Fish. You don’t have a favorite movie, or even close, but you really enjoy the original trilogy of Star Wars, and The Big Lebowski, and anything Will Ferrell, and you hate Good Luck Chuck and Punshier: War Zone, both of which you watched last night. You don’t really read, but you love A Prayer for Owen Meany. You are a pop culture king and a trivia whiz and hipster wannabe.
But now I have to go. Or you have to go. Or we have to go. We have to go set up for a date! You’re getting her a rose and 10 pints of Moose Tracks. Done anything romantic for your wife lately? You should. After you high-five Dillon, you should. And call your cousins too! (How the hell is Chris doing?) Tell them you love them! And all of your friends! Actually, call everyone mentioned here, and hundreds that aren’t, and tell them you love them. And relive your eighteenth birthday, with David and Steph and Grant and Crib Angel and Tony and Melik and MC and everyone!
I’m sure I’ll come back and right more, but if I don’t…
Live the life you love. With no exceptions.
With grand amounts of love,
You twenty-seven years ago
