Letter to My Tweenage Queer Self on October 11th, 2001

I’ve been reading Twain’s “Letters from the Earth.” It’s put me in the mood to write just such an abstract letter to no one, and, since it is National Coming Out Day, my letter will be to the no one who was myself at the age of 13.

Oh, and I’m a big old homo.

Dear 13-Year-Old Me,

You picked one hell of a time to be born queer.

I know right now all you want is to be normal.

You want to be straight. You want to be quieter, more stoic, more masculine.

You want to paste yourself into the image of happiness you see everywhere: two kids, a wife, and lots of vanilla hugs and kisses.

Sometimes you dream of far away places. They’re redolent with possibility, the chance that maybe you might find something that would make you feel safe. But right now, you are trying waaay too hard to jam a round peg in a square hole.

(You won’t understand why that turn of phrase is funny, but your future self is chuckling.)

Baby Me? It’s impossible. You’re eating at the table of someone else’s happiness. You are desperately trying to transpose your likeness onto a scene of Straight Fairytale Bliss, and, in the process, you’re making yourself perfectly miserable.

So schnap out of it.

(Again, you won’t get that because the only Cher song you know at this point is “I’ve Got You Babe,” and buddy, that don’t count.)

You can’t see it now, but once the dust has settled from That Day in September, the America of your childhood is going to morph into something unrecognizable. No more Spice Girls. No more Nirvana.

You are going to be scared of men with buzzcuts. Your mother is going to tell you that you can never wear camo cargo shorts (trust her on this). There will be war with its attendant hypermasculinity.

You are going to be bullied by people who never come to much of anything in life (I know that’s vindictive to say, Tweenage Me, but it’s true). You are going to be called a fag, a homo, a queer, all of it. You are going to go through an uncomfortable adjustment period where those words still set your heart racing in fear. The period will last until you move to California at the age of 23.

You are going to be hyper-vigilant. When you come out to your parents in college, they will say that they were glad that you waited because of “what happened to Matthew Shepard.” High schoolers will scream from their car windows at you or threaten to run you over with the SUVs that their rich parents bought them. (Oh! Reminds me: Right about now you’re probably starting to realize that you were born on the lower rung of the economic ladder.)

But 13-Year-Old Me? You’re going to make it. You’re going to learn more about life by the time you’re 28 than most people do in a lifetime. You’re going to take all the pain, all the alienation, and everything that feels wrong right now and incorporate it into your story and character.

Remember what it feels like to be different. Remember what it feels like to be poor. Remember what it feels like to simply feel a little more than most people. These aren’t faults, even though everyone around you will tell you that they are. These are qualities. These will let you empathize with humanity. These will give you a love of reading. These will give you the courage to go out on the big adventures you fear so much right now.

And hold onto hope that you aren’t entirely alone because you’ll find out that you’re not. You’ll meet people who love you precisely for everything you’re hiding from your family and classmates right now. They’ll love your sensitivity and your insufferably nerdy hobbies. Instead of piercing your confidence with an icy glare when you wax rhapsodically about the shape of the Conestoga wagon, they’ll smile.

I know it’s scary, Tweenage Me. You’ll be scared again on October 11, 2016 to write a public letter to yourself, but you’ll be able to step back and say to yourself, “Well, looks like I made it.”

Sincerely,
Alexander

P.S. OH AND AMERICA HAS TOTALLY GONE OFF THE F-ING RAILS.