My drivers license is about to expire and I am trying not to dwell on my recent decision to cut bangs. For the first time in two decades, I have to renew my license in-person. I pull into the Department of Motor Vehicles, I park my car and assemble the papers that sit on the passenger seat. I am optimistic and photo ready. I go inside and get in line. I am here, I tell the clerk at the check-in desk, to get a Real ID.

Dear Aspiring Dancer,

Thank you for auditioning to be in the Nutcracker; we can tell just how far this was out of your comfort zone. We appreciate that when you dance, your arms flail all over the place like palm trees during a Category 5 Hurricane, you maintain a comical lack of flexibility even after four years of attempting to be anything but a human tree branch, and you will not stop talking to your neighbor about the movie Enchanted, no matter how loud we play Tchaikovsky as a sign to tell you to shut up.

Throughout a long and rewarding business career, I have often been asked, How did you get into public relations? Well, it’s kind of a funny story. Or it is now. Today, I can laugh at the litany of misadventures that characterized my first step into the job market. But for years, that innocuous question would hurl me into a flashback traumatic by a young person’s standards.

Dear Trish,

It was so annoying how Marlee slid on her jeans, buttoned them easily, and pulled a cream-colored, cable-knit sweater over her head, ready to party. She didn’t wonder if the pants were too tight, if they made her look fat, if the shirt covered the soft rolls of her stomach.

Dear Melina,

I write this love-letter to you when I am old enough to be your grandmother, and when Grandma was my age. Time is a funny thing. It unspools before us and then folds in on itself to be carried forward into the memories of body and soul. You are eleven years old in this memory. You are a child on the cusp of womanhood, and I am a woman on the cusp of old age.

Brrring! The bell screeches, telling us that lunch is here.

A herd of tiny, boisterous bodies rushes into the open courtyard, waiting to eat, play, laugh, and talk together. Amongst them, a large group of girls congregate, buzzing with renewed excitement, eager to witness the daily ritual. I follow my friend, Githushka, out the door, rushing to get a prime spot.

Dear Pubescent Me,

This is a sensitive topic, I know. I know how much pain and embarrassment it gives you. I know how you avert from peoples’ gazes, maintain distance, never keep your face still. Your hands gesture and distract—all to deter their eyes from lingering. They linger and they see. I won’t even name it, because naming it makes it real and forever, and you can’t fathom living with it forever.

I am seven years old. It’s time for communion in my United Methodist Church in a small town in mid-Michigan. After watching communion by intinction happen for so many years from the sidelines, I am excited when my mom tells me it is okay for me to line up in the center aisle with her and slowly shuffle forward, waiting for my time to tear a piece of bread off the soft, white loaf and dip it in the grape juice.

Growing up, the Black girls I saw hid in mirrors.

In the wood panel bathroom, the girl had endless marks on her face. She looked back at me with disdain as I moved through middle and high school. Her ears flew out the sides of her head under hair too short and not straight enough.

Dear Tiffany,

I wish I could warn you. You don’t have to fear them. They are made of flesh and bone, just like you. They can’t control everything, even though they try so hard you believe it. One day you will realize they are fragile. You are strong. You can snap them into pieces with your words. You will bite your tongue. You will keep your distance.

When I was little I would lean out the window of our second floor Mexico City home and sing to the stars.  I would make up my little melodies as the evening lingered on with my little brother joining me in my serenade to the “little lights up in the sky.”  

Over a decade ago, I had a best guy friend with whom I shared a great deal of my life. He was the picture perfect, textbook “nice guy.” Unfortunately, as is common, when someone seems nearly too good to be true, they often are. This guy was my best friend. And I his. I had always suspected that he wanted more than my friendship, but I wasn’t interested in taking our relationship to that place. I thought this was something that he would respect. I was wrong.

When the breeze blew cold, the sun shined bright, and the room filled with tears of happiness, you were holding a little girl in your arms. Your arms that were warm enough to cuddle her that rainy and chilling July. Your fingers that lingered over her head and a kiss you planted on her forehead. She was lucky enough to come into this world and call you her “Papa.” I am proud to be that grown up little girl of yours.

Dear 2016 Alissa,

To be fair, I didn’t think you’d come this far. I had no idea you would do such stupid things with twenty-three guys. Here is the gold medal for being a slut, a very good one.

Dear Past Me,

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but those aren’t orgasms. You’ll learn this years down the road when you finally get your medication cocktail right, and discover you’re deserving of pleasure. You have a lot of learning to do, and you’ll get there eventually. Trust me, things will start to feel a lot better soon, and you won’t have to fake it anymore, even if, in your heart of hearts, you feel like it’s sincere.

In school, people always assumed I was in a wheelchair because of an accident. And whenever I spoke up, the conversation stopped in its tracks. Like most girls, I had insecurities, but my insecurities are ones I could never hide from. I remember just wanting to fit in like everyone else. Especially when I hit middle school. Up until that point, I had felt like every other kid my age.

My name is Juliana Ruggiero. I’m eighteen and have Spastic Cerebral Palsy. My story begins in 1999. I was a fragile preemie who weighed only 3.10 pounds. My parents were not able to hold me. Instead, I was taken away to the NICU. I was on a breathing machine and closely monitored by a team of doctors until I was stable enough and my lungs were developed enough to function on their own.

Ladies wear makeup, party dresses, and shoes.
Like to paint their nails and wear stylish updos.
A life made by having lots of material things,
along with it, the stuff that style surely brings.

Fingers curled around the cold edge of the kitchen sink; I hold on with the hope that I can outlast the temptation radiating from a flimsy grocery store cookie box. Inside are five, ordinary, chocolate chip cookies that look more amazing than the ever-loving galaxy. I imagine my teeth sinking into the dough, dividing it cleanly into morsels of flavor washing over my tongue, sending streaks of pleasure up into my brain.

"Gosh you have such a pretty face."

"You are so tall, like an Amazon woman!"

"I am not sure if they sell clothes in your size, but we should be able to find something super cute."

"If you lost about twenty-five pounds, you would be gorgeous."