A blog to my 13-year-old self

Dear Krissy,

Hello. This is your Future Self, writing you a blog from the year 2018. You don't know what a blog is because it's 1998, and the Internet is some mysterious thing that has something to do with talking to people through computers, and you don't really understand it, but you know if you had it you could vote for the Backstreet Boys' videos on TRL every day, and so you would like the Internet very much. Spoiler alert: You do get the Internet, and you do use it to vote for BSB on TRL, and one day in November 1999, your message scrolls across the screen during "Larger Than Life" and it will be the highlight of your week. So you got that to look forward to.

But I digress. A blog is a collection of online posts that can be written by one person, or many people, and can be about anything under the sun. People have been telling me to start a blog for years, but I've always hesitated. I don't have anything to say, I would think, and even if I did, who would care? 

I imagine you're surprised by that attitude. You, 13-year-old Krissy Scatton, have a lot to say, and why wouldn't people care? Your thoughts, ideas and feelings are IMPORTANT and anyone who thinks otherwise is a stupid idiot who just DOESN'T GET IT. You would never hold back an opinion, or question whether someone would want to hear what you have to say. You are a doer, a dreamer. You choreograph entire dances in your mind and then perform them, with costume changes, in your backyard. You are going to be a pop star even though you have no clue what middle C is actually supposed to sound like. You wrote a book that was basically a rip-off of Titanic, and give zero fucks about it. It's going to be a bestseller, get turned into a movie, and "Truly Madly Deeply" by Savage Garden is going to be the theme song because WHY THE FUCK NOT. You're not going to be tied to one place, one person, one job - you're going to travel the world, having adventures. You would never spend years dodging suggestions and encouragement, and waffling about why and how  and I don't know, maybe eventually.

I confess to you that somewhere in the twenty years that stands between you and me (I know, that amount of time seems just as impossible on my end, too), I lost that sense of confidence, that willingness to claim space and attention for my ideas and feelings simply because they were mine, that belief that anything is possible. In fact,  a lot of the time, I wanted to be smaller, to hide my ideas and feelings and my whole self, to avoid being exposed to judgement, embarrassment, cruelty. harassment. I doubted whether anything I could add to any conversation, online or in person, could be of value. I started to accept that a lot of my dreams would be just that - dreams.

How did this happen? you make ask. Part of it comes from the things you do in those 20 intervening years. The places you'll live, the people you'll meet and the experiences you'll have will expand your world and worldview. You'll realize that there are a lot of people who have a lot of important, intelligent things to say, and they deserve opportunities to say them and be heard. You will learn a lot by listening to other people and not thinking that you know everything all the time and like, maybe it's ok if you're not the center of universe 24/7. Perspective goes a long way in this life, and it's something that you will never stop acquiring and adjusting. 

Part of it comes from - and I know this will be hard to hear - the fact that Mom and Dad were right about some things. Being an adult is a big responsibility. Bills are real, not just some mysterious scapegoat for why you can't go to Disney World every year or get a car on your 16th birthday. You will not be able to do what you want, whenever you want, with no consequences, 100% of the time. There are people who do that, and you will dislike them very much, because they tend to make life more complicated for everyone else. But there are a lot of awesome things about being an adult, too. There's traveling, and living alone, and whiskey, and sex - I'm here to tell you that sex is absolutely as much fun as you think it's going to be, provided you do it with the right people. You're going to do it with a lot of the wrong people before you figure that out, but that's ok. That happens to most people. 

The other part of the explanation...that's a little tougher. You will want to avoid judgement, embarrassment, cruelty and harassment because you will experience all of those things. You will experience them at the hands of people you love, and and from complete strangers. You will experience those actions firsthand, and you will witness others experience them as well. You yourself will inflict those behaviors on others, and feel the weight of compounding ugliness in your own heart for behaving that way. You will be hurt. I'm sorry, but it is simply unavoidable. And your reaction will be to grow doubtful and fearful, and retreat behind walls so you can't be hurt again. You will lose faith in the value of your ideas and feelings, both to yourself and the wider world. You will shrink, to be just another voice in the cacophony of voices clamoring around inside the mind of 33-year-old Kristen Scatton. 

But! Before you think that all is lost, I am also here from the future to tell you that it is not. Though you may shrink, and get buried in the muck of broken hearts, displaced dreams, and a world gone mad, you never disappear completely. And one day, in 2018, I will find your diaries - those frantic scribblings, dashed off in a rainbow of colored inks long after you were supposed to be in bed, because how could anyone sleep with so many ambitions and passions flowing through them? I'll read them, and something dormant in me, something that I've stifled and tried to ignore for a long, long time, will be awakened. I'll rediscover who I really am - you - and understand what it is I've been seeking for these past several years. I will say to myself, Damn, I was a force. Fuck going through life with the confidence of a mediocre white man - I want to go through life with the confidence of a 13-year-old Krissy Scatton. That bitch could do anything! 

And I'll create a website (how cool is that? Not only do you have the Internet, you know how to create a whole website!) and I'll sit down to write my first blog, and those voices of doubt and fear will start whispering to me, like they always do, like I suspect they will do for a long time, if not forever. But on this day, I will shout back, "HEY! SHUT UP! I HAVE SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO SAY TO MY 13-YEAR-OLD SELF." 

So, my dear, restless, ambitious, naive, cocky, daydreamy, fearless, know-it-all self, this is what I have to say to you  - thank you. Thank you for not abandoning me, no matter how hard I tried to silence and forget you. You have so much in store for you, both good and bad, but rest assured - I'll be waiting for you when you get here. I love you.