A LETTER TO MY 13-YEAR-OLD SELF.
35 years from now, you’ll look back on today, and you’ll see how sensible you really are compared to some of your peers. And you’ll learn that you’re not the only person that some of them had trouble with. And you’ll learn that some of what those who bully you do reveals more about them than it does about you.
Dr Phil might say that it’s better to be from a broken home than in a broken home, but you’ll learn that even though your parents are still together, that kid in your class who gives you trouble who’s from one and who tried to close you in a compacter file has been best mates and worst enemies with another of your contemporaries. And his nastiness is his own bitterness at his family situation. His family situation is his problem, but that doesn’t give him a right to take his bitterness out on you.
One August 5, 1988, when you’re home with the flu, your English class will be breaking up into groups to do a play, but that kid will say, “Oh, we’ll have Peter,” but unlike last year, when you were the victim in a play, you’ll have he most lines to remember, while he only has to remember, “Hilda, what’s on television?” But your memory skills will set you in good stead. Your drama teacher says that you have little aptitude to performance work, but Professor Tony Attwood will tell you something that will prove your teacher wrong.
And June 15, 1988, when you’re on that Science excursion. The bus trip there was hell, and the bullying pest, when the teacher wonders if anyone is missing, says that you are, but you don’t put your hand up for the teacher because you don’t want the teacher to find you, or him. You’ll see an accident, and a boy in your class will say that it would be good if there was a body on the road, and another teacher turns and snaps at him asking if he’s stupid. He demonstrated his immaturity and you didn’t respond. Then, on the return trip, you sat next to the disconsolate guy who fell into the waterfall and got wet. Even if he was being silly, you were the only person who’d sit beside him, to keep yourself safe. The bullying pest didn’t like school, and he wanted to drag everybody else down. He’d be 50 now, and he might be a 50-year-old pest, or he might not. But he’s not important.
If you give up now, you’ll be the one to miss out on a university education, and obtaining a driver’s licence, and falling into and out of love. And just like I said that that guy isn’t important, he’s unlikely to be thinking, “Oh, shit. I wonder how that kid who I was horrible to is going today?” If someone mentions your name to him, he’ll probably say, “Who’s that?” “The kid you bullied.” “Oh, did I? I don’t remember them.”
Love, 48 year old Peter.