A Letter To My 12 Year Old Self

Dear 12 year old Chloe,

I am writing you this letter as a 19 year old college student. Yes, you made it to college. While you did make few mistakes along the way (you even got some Bs), shockingly enough, you didn’t end up flipping burgers at McDonald’s. You got a scholarship to a great school in A an amazing city, your dream. I’m sure you’re reading this and hoping I’m going to tell you exactly what that school is and exactly where that city is. I’m not.  I’m not going to give you a lot of insight into your future because I want you to figure it out on your own. I am, however, going to give you a lot of advice on how to handle your future. My goal is not to spare you from all the pain that is ahead of you, but to better prepare you for how to deal with that pain. So get comfortable, curl up with Murphy, and get ready because I’m going to throw a lot of advice your way; advice about how you should view the world; advice about how to view the people who are in your life now and later on; and advice about how to view yourself. I want you to really take it in.

My guess is that right now in your life, your biggest concern is most likely which boy you’re going to date next. While an important social dilemma for a 6th grader, that is not what best you could focus your attention on. The world is a crazy, wonderful, awful, messy, exciting place and I know it must be very daunting and overwhelming for a 12 year old (it’s still overwhelming for me, and I don’t think that’s ever going to change), but it’s vital to at least attempt to stay informed. Listen to NPR (that radio station mom listens to that you always give her crap for). Just do it. That brand new iPod nano you just bought gets radio stations and NPR is on 89.7. Listen to it while you’re walking to the bus in the morning and then you can change to music once you’re on the bus with friends. Pay attention when you’re listening and take note of things you find interesting and ask questions about the things that confuse you. You can google them and learn more or just ask mom. Getting in the habit of listening now is going to help you so much later in life. Being knowledgeable about the goings on in the world is imperative and you’ll impress a lot of people.

Ask questions in general. I know you hate to look dumb, but seriously, asking questions makes it look like you care, and it’ll probably save you from asking a lot more stupid questions later on. Ask questions when you’re in school and you don’t understand what the teacher is saying; ask questions when your friends and family say things definitively but you’re not so sure they’re right; ask questions when you see things happening that you don’t quite grasp or that don’t seem okay. Questioning people makes those people rethink their actions, and their answers to your questions can help you decipher if you think their actions were justified. Because ultimately, you have to decide what you think is right or wrong in the world, and it won’t always be that clear. There are a lot of things and people that are both right and wrong. It’s okay to be both, but asking questions will help you deduce what actions outweigh others; it will help you create your own moral code and what actions or ideals you don’t support. Having opinions is normal, and it's okay if your opinions don’t always align with other peoples’ as long as you are confident and secure in your own, which only comes from questioning the ones around you.

As you start to pay more attention to the world and ask questions about it, notice your place, especially as a woman, in that world. You’ve heard the word feminism before, sure, but do you really know what it means? Have you really seen and experienced the way women are oppressed? Maybe you haven’t fully yet but you will. Unfortunately, I cannot change that for you or anyone else for that matter, it’s a struggle I, and every other woman, still face today. Luckily, people are beginning to talk about it more. But people needed to be talking about it long before now. You can start that dialogue. At this moment you’re probably thinking I’m crazy, a 12 year old starting a dialogue about women’s injustice?! I’m not crazy (I hope). I’m not saying you’re going to change the world either, but speaking up when you see things that aren’t right and talking to your friends about it is a great place to start. Now you’re probably wondering where to look for these injustices: everywhere, even just in your day-to-day life.  Look at how the majority of your teachers are female, but then as you get higher and higher up that totem pole to principle and even superintendent, that majority shifts drastically. Look at how the number of girls in those “gifted” classes you’re in has grown smaller and smaller. Look at the people you study in history class and note what percent of them are male, even more specifically, white males. 

It’s a hard world to live in as a girl especially at your age when you’re just beginning to comprehend the real extent of that hardship. When you’ve heard the word feminism in the past it’s mostly been from your mom and you’ve always thought of it as a positive thing. Sadly, a lot of people see this word as a negative thing, but don’t let them sway your opinion. Feminism has always been and will always be “a movement whose primary purpose is to achieve equality, in all realms, between men and women” (Gay). As you grow up, keep that definition in mind as you examine the society around you and around the world. Ask questions and never be afraid to stand up when you feel something isn’t right. You’ve got a good sense of awareness, don’t ignore that because you’re afraid of what others might think. 

Make sure that when you’re looking for these injustices, you’re looking for multiple. It might be easy to see the injustices that women face because you yourself are a woman, but what about black people and other people of color? What about the LGBTQ+ community? What about immigrants? And even more, look at the ways those injustices intersect. How does being both black and a woman impact a person? How about being a black, queer, female, immigrant?

As you’re inspecting the world, don’t forget to acknowledge the people who are playing important roles in your life. It’s okay to lean on others, really. You’re just getting to the age where you are beginning to get it in your head that you can’t count on anyone but yourself. While I think independence is a great thing, letting it get to the point where you close yourself off from other people is not. You have wounds, yes. There were things in your childhood (and unfortunately quite a few more to come) that wounded you, but that’s okay. Everyone has wounds, “wounds promise authenticity and profundity, beauty and singularity, desirability. They summon sympathy. They bleed enough light to write by” (Jamison 4 ). Acknowledging you have those wounds is okay, pain is normal, but that doesn’t make it any less real. 

There are going to be people in your life (men in particular) who are going to tell you that your pain doesn’t matter. Don’t listen to them. It does, but at the same time, you have to know that you are not alone in your pain. You can use that to build a community. Having a great support system is key. That’s something I wish I’d really valued at your age because if I had been able to lean on a community later down the line, things may have gone very differently. At the same time, the people in your life are going to change. You’re going to lose people that at certain points you were once closest to, and yes that will hurt, a lot. However, you also have yet to meet some of the people who will mean the most to you. Just try to keep an open mind and allow yourself to let people in; fight the urge to only let them go surface deep, let them dive in, and ride the waves with you.

On the topic of building a community, let’s talk about your mom. You’re currently in your “I hate mom” phase as you resent her for making our dad leave. News flash, she didn’t make him leave, he chose to leave. Yes, she stopped loving him years ago and yes he very inappropriately confessed to you that he still loves her. You were lying in your bed in a hotel room across from LAX the night before you were heading back home from visiting our brother, Ben. Dad was in the bed on the other side of the room and just as you were about to fall asleep he whispered “I’m still in love with your mom”, and then rolled over and went to sleep. Unfortunately, that will not be the last time you hear that, and he will never apologize for telling you. He painted our mom as the villain that night, and that was wrong. Sometimes people fall out of love; it’s sad, but it happens. Our mom broke our father’s heart but our father left, and he broke ours when he left. They were both at fault; the blame is shared. Our mom is not perfect by any means and she will burden you with far more than any child should be burdened with (like asking you, at 8 years old, to help her make her match.com profile just months after the divorce was finalized), but she loves you more than anything in the world. She will become your best friend, but remember she is still your mom. There are just some things mothers should not know about their daughters (hopefully you’ll learn this soon; it’ll save you from a lot of fights). Do not resent our mom or our dad. We all have different lots in life, maybe they didn’t handle things the best they could, but you could have had it a lot worse, and the relationship I have with them today is one I wouldn’t trade for the world.

Overall, value the people you have in your life, but don’t expect any of them to be perfect. You hold people at such a high standard and when they don’t live up to that, you resent them. Don’t. Learn to accept people and all their faults. Also, try to learn to acknowledge when you do start forming those resentments, so you can resolve them. Vulnerability in being able to be open and honest with people is hard, and it’s something I still struggle a lot with. The earlier you get comfortable with it, the better.

I would like to pause here and congratulate you for making it thus far. Four pages in and you haven’t given up yet! I’m also pausing because the next part of my advice is possibly the most important. The other parts are very important too, and will definitely help you become a happier, better person, but this part takes the cake. This is the part where I talk about your self image

This year and next year will be the first times you question your value to this planet, and sadly, this will become an all too frequent thought for you. Mental health is something that is just beginning to be talked about openly. Before (and even still) there was a stigma that being mentally ill meant you were damaged. That. Is. A. Lie. You are NOT damaged. One in five adults experience some kind of mental illness in their lives, that’s 18.5% of the adult population, and that only accounts for the cases that are diagnosed (“NAMI”). However, its commonality does not diminish the struggle that comes along with mental illness. 

Unfortunately, nothing I write in this letter can keep you from experiencing this. No piece of advice will spare you from thinking you are not worthy. It will happen and it will be hard, but I can tell you it will get easier, at least for a little while. A large part of your struggle with vulnerability will come from experiences you will have reaching out to people when you’re feeling low and them not reacting well and even treating you differently because of it. I wish I could give you a list of the people who understand what you’re going through and have become your support system, but, ironically enough, it took opening up to some of the wrong people for you to figure out who the right people were. I just urge you to keep trying. Keep leaning on people when you need it and if they let you fall, pick yourself back up, learn and understand why what they did didn’t help, and use that for the next time. 

Please, for the love of god, give yourself a break! You are not perfect, sorry to break it to you. I know you’re going to do everything in your power to challenge that, but honestly, just don’t. It won’t work. I can tell you that the person sitting here writing you this letter is in no way perfect, despite years and years and years of trying to be. You will not get perfect grades. You will never be the smartest, or the prettiest, or the skinniest girl in the room. So take a break from studying, put down the makeup, eat an entire pot of Annie’s Mac and Cheese, and just breathe. In an essay by Lucy Grealy, that you will read in college, she describes when she came to the revelation that “what caused [her] sadness and [her] deep-seated unsatiableness was not a moral breakdown on [her] part (as conservative cultural watchdogs would have us believe) but rather [her] credulousness in believing beauty equals worthiness” (Grealy). It doesn’t. Almost every aspect of society wants to tell you otherwise but trust me when I say they’re wrong. Sadly, beauty is used a lot to evaluate women, but being beautiful doesn’t necessarily mean they’re worthy of the things that are being handed to them. 

Now, as you read this next part, I want you to read it aloud. Ready? I. am. enough. Okay now repeat that as many times as it takes for you to really believe it, and anytime you start to doubt it, say it again. Someone once told me that everyone’s pain can be condensed down to one word, one word that haunts them. Yours is enough. You constantly worry that you’re not enough, not smart enough, not pretty enough, not nice enough, not skinny enough, not talented enough. I am here to say that you are. You can continue to grow and become a better person but in each moment, you are enough. 

I’ve just dumped 19 years worth of insight and advice on your 12 year old lap. I’m sure a lot of it will go over your head and some of it you may not even understand. That is perfectly okay. I also know that most of what I’ve said is far easier said than done. If I’m being perfectly honest, I’m not sure I truly do all of it now. I need to get better at asking questions, noticing the injustice I am privy to on a daily basis, leaning on the people around me, and accepting that I am enough. So, keep this letter with you. As you grow up you’ll understand where I’m coming from and you’ll gain all kinds of new insights. Add to it. Use it as a way to reflect on how much you’ve grown and how much more growing you will do. 

You are enough Chloe Koehler and don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise.

Give Murphy a lot of extra love for me (I will tell you he was always the most reliable person to talk to).

Love Always,

19 year old Chloe

Works Cited

Gay, Roxane. Bad Feminist: Essays. Olive Editions, 2017.

Grealy, Lucy. “Autobiography of a Body.” Nerve, 5 May 2015, www.nerve.com/personalessays/grealy/body.

Leslie Jamison. “The Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain.” VQR, 2014, www.vqronline.org/essays-articles/2014/04/grand-unified-theory-female-pain. 

“NAMI.” NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness, www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-By-the-Numbers.