Dear Nancy
Dear Past Me,
I love that you’re still a tomboy as you enter middle school. That you still play pickup touch football with the guys in the neighborhood and don’t care about makeup. You’re very smart, but maybe a little naïve about other people’s motivations. I’m hoping you’re old enough to receive the advice I want to give you in this letter. Some of it may seem trivial, but taken all together, it could be life changing. And not just for you. I wish I could wait until you’re a bit older, but then it will be too late.
Going to middle school can feel like you’ve moved to a whole different country. Some kids are already dating, girls obsess over things like the pattern on their bell bottoms, and there seems to be so many vague rules about what is cool and what isn’t. It’s easy to get stuck in your head, trying to figure out why Pam told you that you carry your books like a boy, or why Cindy didn’t say hi to you in the hallway. The biggest thing I want to say is this: pay attention. Not just in class (which I know you already do), but in general. Don’t get lost living in your head, rethinking small things people did or said, daydreaming about trivia.
Pay attention to the unexpected things that show you what you’re good at. In seventh grade, you’ll write a report about apples for home economics class. It will be so well written your teacher will jot on the cover page “Very nicely written. Your words?” and Mom will have to explain that the teacher thinks you copied it all out of books. Don’t just think to yourself “that’s weird.” Recognize what it says about your writing skills.
Pay attention to the books you choose. When you go to the town library with Dad on Saturdays, you pull out those huge volumes like Famous American Plays of the 1950s and actually read them. You love the scenes, the dialogue, the worlds you can see in your head because of the words on the page.
Don’t watch so much television, especially all of those wildlife shows like Wild Kingdom, and the endless stream of documentaries about endangered species. They will make you so upset you think you have to save the world by becoming Jane Goodall (except you want to study cheetahs instead of chimps). Pay attention when you take that college trip sophomore year to Belize and your class spends several hours in the jungle with a guy studying spider monkeys. You’ll notice he seems really bored and lonely, but you shrug it off too easily.
I hope if you pay attention to these things, you might make some different choices down the road that play to your strengths. But here’s the hardest part. The thing I want you to pay the closest attention to isn’t a thing. It’s your younger brother, Geoff.
I know he’s only six right now and seems so carefree. You’re busy with your friends. Gone are the days when you played school and house with him and Jeanne, when they called you Mommy. He’s adorable – the only one of the four of us who won the recessive gene lottery and came out with bright blue eyes and a sheath of blond hair. But don’t be fooled.
As early as second grade, his teacher will notice he is anxious and gets upset easily if he makes mistakes. (I’ve read this in his report cards.) He will be the final one of us to deal with the unfortunate combination of high expectations and little nurturing with which we were raised. You know exactly what I’m talking about. You already pay attention to the way Mom and Dad berate your older brother when he brings home bad grades, the ominous predictions that a whole cascade of lost opportunities will flow from the C- he got in algebra. It’s why you’ve always been studious and rule driven. Jeanne, following you by three years, will work so hard to live up to the standards you set, she will often be up half the night, sobbing as she rips up and rewrites papers.
For a while, Geoff will seem okay, but pay attention. Do more to stay close to him so he will listen to you when it counts. By age thirteen or fourteen, he’ll start treating his anxiety by smoking dope, and his grades will suffer over the course of high school. You’ll be at college, only home for holidays and summers, but spend more time with him. Talk to him about how so many things aren’t as important as they seem.
Even if there are lapses in your attention over the years, the summer after you graduate college is when you most need to reconnect with Geoff. Going into the fall, he has to start dealing with college applications. That day he sits down to meet with Dad about his essay, don’t walk away if a fight starts. It will be hard. I know Dad can be scary when he’s mad. But tell him to back off and stop making Geoff feel like he’s screwed up his whole life. If Geoff walks off the back deck of the house and you think he’s just cutting through the woods to walk to town or smoke dope, stop him. Please stop him.
I know this is a lot to put on the shoulders of a sixth grader. I’m sorry for that. But it’s the thing I most vehemently wish I’d done differently when I was younger. I didn’t write for the school newspaper. I was hopelessly nerdy in high school. You might make different choices about such things, or not. In the larger scheme, they aren’t that important. But what you don’t want, for all the years after you graduate college, is to sit down at family holidays where someone is missing, knowing you might have done something about it.
All love,
Future You
Nancy Isaac is a writer and tutor who lives near Boston. After a BS in biology, she did not pursue animal behavior, but later received a doctorate in epidemiology. She left academic research to homeschool her older son, and later taught English language learners in the Cambridge MA public schools. She enjoys hiking, kayaking, and long camping trips with her husband.