I was at a point in the third draft of my memoir where I was stripping away the filters and the omniscience that were consistently a part of my first and second drafts. I was working to remember, without judging my narrator and his choices, how I really felt when I was seventeen (and therefore how the narrator would feel at seventeen): discovering how cruisey the men’s room at Sears was, seeing Rocky Horror for the first time, and nursing a crush on the captain of the school baseball team. A friend stopped me and asked me what I, at fifty-five, would want to tell my narrator at seventeen. It came out in a rush, nearly identical to the recreation below.
Dear Brian,
I remember how you feel. How afraid you are of feeling, actually.
It’s okay. You are right to be afraid. You are right to see how different you are.
I know you are not a patient young man. I know you hate things the way they are. I know you need them to change.
They will change. In ways you never imagined. It will be hard to wait, but I am there with you, waiting with you.
You’ve already done incredible things. You’ve survived terrible things. You are strong in ways you easily forget. In ways you easily dismiss and overlook.
Keep going, though. Keep writing. Write more for yourself, if you can. Lock your words away if you have to. You don’t need to perform all the time. I am with you. I know who you want to be.
Count on me, Brian. I have strength for you. Draw on it.
Rely on me, Brian. I’ve known you at your worst and at your best, and I can’t ever stop loving you. I’ve seen you struggle through fear and confusion, and I’ve longed to console you.
Trust me, Brian. You are making the right decisions. You are biding your time. You are right to wait for the safety and acceptance you deserve, for the love you deserve.
They are coming for you. How can I know? How can I be so certain?
Because they are all within me. All of the safety, the acceptance, and yes, the love. All of that is within me, and therefore it is within you. Waiting for you.
Keep coming through, Brian. Every day brings you closer to me. I’m waiting with my arms outstretched. With my love outstretched.
When it was done, when I had talked myself out, my friends smiled at me through the Zoom camera. Now we know who you are writing for, she said. The memoir is for you and for the many other young people forced to survive trauma. Keep going, she said.
