Be yourself, even when it’s hard.
Learn to laugh at yourself.
Wearing make-up, getting your “monthly visit,” shaving – none of this is a race.
Dance.
Seriously, if your list includes the one-word sentence “Dance.,” just stop.
Do you remember what it’s like when your skin is crawling with how much you hate every single disgusting inch of your hideous body and the punk-ass bitches at school are treating you like you’re actual weird hairy pond scum and everything you once thought was certain about life and God and your best friend and your inner self is suddenly shaking? Do you remember the white-hate fear of exposing some humiliating truth about your gaping ignorance? Do you remember the ever-simmering, gullet-squeezing rage?
Dance my ass.
Here is what I want to us say to our middle schoolers: I hope you learn all of the big, bristly lessons that you can only learn by living. And I hope that, when you reach the edges of your ferocity and your clawing independence, you remember the warm, cavernous wells of my love. I am here. I am here. I am always, always here.