Letter to a Younger J

Influenced, as usual, by the inspirational Terra, I thought it might be a good idea to write a letter to my younger self from this rather bizarre position of being 17-and-three-quarters. This is the first time in my life when I can say that I understand the significance of how much I have changed and how much more I will continue to change. I see the life stretching out in front of me like a hazy wilderness, and I hope it will make more sense as I travel through the mist.

The other day it occurred to me that life is nothing but a mixture of memory and the unknown. The actual present, the now, is such a ridiculously small time (I suppose it would be impossible to measure it; an infinitely small part of a nano-second) that it almost does not exist at all. Everything, then, is what has happened to us and what is to come. Life is, basically, one giant dream. I'm not convinced we're not all hallucinating anyway. I don't know why humans don't all implode, why we don't all just disintegrate from the overwhelming scariness of the mystery of life.

Life had more meaning when I was younger, even though I didn't "know " as much about the business of living and the way the world "works." I guess it is true that we know nothing, absolutely nothing, of this bizarre dream-world we inhabit. My younger self might have appreciated that thought...

Anyway, without further ado, here is my letter.

Dear J,

There will come a time when you will lose your security in everything you thought was certain: your faith, your happiness, your whole existence. One day, your brain will stop philosophising within a barbed-wire-surrounded box labelled "Christianity," and your thoughts will fly through a spinning vortex of confusion and nothingness. You'll have learned the theory -- you'll know your Hume from your Hegel -- but you'll have lost knowledge. You won't "know" anything anymore. The God that seemed so close to you will suddenly seem to never have been there. You won't have to worry about being watched while you undress, but a whole new load of worries will arrive in your developing teenage brain: your entire life will be thrown into disarray.

You needn't feel threatened by this, however; even though the big questions in life will suddenly seem overwhelming, you'll realise that you have control over your own life. Obviously there will always be things that you can't change, and things will happen that are not in your power to stop. But you can say what you want, you can be what the fuck you want to be, and what does it matter what anyone thinks? Especially if this is all a giant hallucination or some eternal computer-game: your life, your decisions. Make good decisions. That's really, really important. One good decision you made, little J, was saying you'd never be a "bad teenager." You simplistically thought that being a "bad teenager" meant swearing and shouting and behaving like Kevin, but you were right to keep your parents onside. Good choices. Keep making them.

One day, you're going to have friends. In the plural. Really good ones, at that. Stop seeing yourself as a victim. I know it's hard, and I still feel that I have "FREAK" tattooed across my forehead. Sometimes I walk through the streets with my head bowed, hoping people aren't looking at me and thinking I'm a nutter. I suppose you'll never completely grow out of feeling self-conscious but things will improve enormously: you have that to look forward to. People will stop laughing at your crazy hair and start complimenting it, believe it or not, so don't worry about that. And people will stop pitying you for your lack of friendship, and start envying you for the quality of your friendships. When I was fifteen or so, I remember a girl who I thought had everything telling me tearfully how lucky I was to have three or four close friends that I trusted completely rather than a huge crowd of superficial girlfriends, and that's when I realised how fortunate I am. So hang on in there, Umbrella-Headed Dyke.

It's really important that you realise that the world does not revolve around you. You sit on your bed, scribbling furiously in your little diary that came free with Blue Peter Magazine, visualising yourself surrounded by angels and the Holy Spirit, feeling gloriously important as you put your little childish philosophies to paper. You are not surrounded by angels, and you are not gloriously important. Other people are living their own lives, separately to yours. Your concerns are not always their concerns, and you have to realise that empathy is not just a quality that you can apply to the starving Africans you have made it your ambition to save. Charity starts at home. It's so very true. One day you will realise that most people are hurting most of the time. One exercise that is quite helpful in this respect is people-watching in the supermarket. I started doing this after a close friend of my mum's became a widow, and she was rude to a fellow customer when Mum took her shopping in Morrison's. Mum's friend is not a rude person, but a grieving one. So when you're next in Sainsbury's, little J, forget your own pathetic concerns and observe the people around you. How many of these people are hurting? A fair few, I'd expect.

You're going to be fine if you stick to your principles (which you will do, on the whole) and remember that you're not as bad a person as sometimes you lead yourself to believe. Don't waste time worrying. Time is something that only speeds up, and that seems to distort and bend and creep up on you when you least expect it. Stay calm, and try to have some confidence.

With Love, J xxx