I Wish We Had The Words

Dear Saint,

There are a lot of things I wish you had known when going into Grade 8. For example, you'd gain amazing skills in rugby and weightlifting, and the body consciousness you felt being awkwardly tall was only temporary. I wish I could tell you we got better at drawing, but honestly, not really. You're more of a writer now! You went from drawing superhero comic books at the back of notebooks to writing thousands of words that get read by people all over the world.

I know you're self-conscious about your spelling and accent. Being in a new school with fancier uniforms and a clique system is why you spend so much time writing and daydreaming. I want to let you know that one day all those things that bothered you will mean nothing. Not the silly cliques, not the people who made fun of how you say "leggings" and not all the stress from being scared that someone will find out that you're like that.

Queer.

You have a word for that now.

When you're a bit older, being queer will bother you. It will bother you so much that you fall behind on your studies, skip going to school, and lose the few friends you have. You have your books, though. You write, read and get a hold of anything that features people like you. You‌ daydream. You want to be like them. This is a difficult but fundamental time in your growth as a writer. Writing stories was your therapy, and you poured yourself into it. I wish, however, that you'd reach out to people older who are like you. I wish you had the resources to address your feelings and process them in a way that wasn't so isolating. I also wish you hadn't pulled away and hadn't developed a habit of being secretive. Your friends at least should have known. You lost them, but you reconnected with them when you got older. Yet you missed out on so much time and bonding in middle school and high school. They could have been there for you, and shutting them out had not only isolated you but hurt them.

I should mention that you definitely don't want to be a doctor. Sure, you like biology and a bit of chemistry but get worse at them, just like how you couldn't keep passing math without studying! It will be hard to bring up to your parents, but you eventually do. Though I wish you had done this sooner. You were (and still do have some elements of) a people pleaser. I wish you had worked on that, and maybe you wouldn't have an ankle that pops because you ran a four-hundred-meter race with a sprain in high school, and of course an exhaustive list of every other little thing you still have to live with today.

Also, it would seem like ignoring the elephant in the room to not bring it up. So, I will bring it up.

Hair.

You don't like your hair very much. It's a convoluted and complicated feeling. On one hand, your mum cutting off your hair is a common punishment. You "grow wings" as she puts it — becoming more confident, more individualistic, sometimes you might even talk back — and then she "breaks them," cutting off your hair, taking away your phone and makeup, humiliating you so that you are small and docile again.

You know this is not a dig at mum.

There is often a tough but typical relationship in our community between adults and kids. It's hard to address. It's hard to rationalize. There is so much shame, self-pity, and regret.

But to summarize, hurt people can hurt people.

Your mother was hurt growing up, and then she hurt you. It made your chest swell and your anxiety worse. It‌ contributed to how much you devalue yourself. Your body, your hair, your feelings. At one point, you didn't want to exist anymore. You wanted to disappear.

Your hair was your enemy, and you would occasionally cut it off in protest — signaling that your mum taking it from you didn't bother you, and other times you wanted it straight and permed, so the kids at school would stop calling you names, and you would look pretty like the characters on TV or the dolls you got from your father when he came back from trips. I wish you'd read and watched more diverse media. I wish‌ that you didn't grow to dislike how you looked without really even understanding why. Social injustice is hard to understand when you don't have the words.

I wish you had the words — the vocabulary — and all the concepts you now understand as an adult.

You've tried to run away once before, and another time you've locked yourself in the closet and bathroom multiple times, just hoping no one will ever find you.

These were troubling coping mechanisms.

There's a lot that I wish you had done differently. But I do not blame you for it — try not to blame yourself for any of it. I wish you'd had the words. The support. The community.

I could wish for it all, but it really doesn't change much.

Saint, I want you to know that despite all the mistakes you might have made, you turned out just fine, and you're happy that you're alive and well. I want you to know that one day you're going to graduate, and one day you're going to move to a continent across the ocean and start your life afresh where you are happy, queer, and confident.

You will have an amazing, thriving community of other people like you. They come in all shades and colours. Many are African women like you. Also, you know some from your middle and high school days. You would look at them, and they would look at you, and you will‌ acknowledge yourselves fully for the first time as queer people.

There are a lot of mistakes that were made, but there are also a lot of things you did right. Don't forget that. Be proud of how far you've come, and how you made it through the other side. Embrace your intuition and foster your confidence. I wish you all the best.

Love,

Older Saint.

──────────────────

Hello, I'm proud to work with RiseUp powered by Kids Help Phone to raise awareness of mental health issues in the Black youth population. If you're a Black youth in Canada who's feeling alone, in an active time of crisis, or who just wants someone to talk to, you can text RISE to 686868 to connect with a trained, volunteer crisis responder, at any time of day. Conversations are confidential, and no issue is too big or too small.