The Surprising Letter A Mother Found In The Drawer Of A Teenager

Yes, during some of my tantrums, I’m typical. A typical teenager. I’m fifteen years old and I have a diary. What you read is simply part of that diary, which is of course locked and hidden. Hidden in a place you will never find it. At the very least, I hope you will not stumble upon it while clearing my things, where you firmly believe that you are restoring some sort of order in a room where I honestly feel lost.

If you found it, it would be a good reason, arguably the best I could find, that you would become a disgusting mother. Overprotective, busy, unbearable. Furthermore, I think you just want to feed your own fears. Fear because you no longer  sleep  any nights or wait for me until late at night. Because yes, in my mind I’m thinking of possibilities that you would rule out.

When I was young, I asked about external things. What is it? What is it for? Now, for a teenager like me, the questions are more uncertain. They have to do with my inner world. I have stopped asking you about them because I think you do not have the answers, at least not my answers. That’s why I prefer my friends when it comes to this. With them I share the feeling of not knowing, the excitement of each new discovery. If you go back in time thirty years, you will understand.

When we grow up, we forget

This is something that confuses me about adults. They forget  all too quickly  that they were also a teenager once. How they were vicious, fell in love for the first time, or pretended to be sick to get out of school. How they turned a blind eye to the clock so they came home late.

The struggle they fought for their independence and the confrontation they resolved between the other expected and the things they really wanted. The price they had to pay to choose one of the two options, in the short or long term. How were you when you were a teenager?

Furthermore,  if the genes that hold this tendency have survived, it is likely that the habit has a somewhat adaptive aspect to it. Which makes it easier for each member to play their role. Which makes you have your expectations and I’ll crush them. Which, of course, made the video an overnight sensation. I think if they explained the Darwin theory in this way, there would be fewer people in the world who would ask themselves what in the world the man ever said that was so important.

To believe that the world is about me…

You know,  as a child, in the selfishness that all children practice, I thought the world was a big stage. And the people, when I did not see them, got ready to present a play that they would later perform for me.

To prove this theory,  I tried many times to be unpredictable. Although I wanted candy, I would say no, just to see how others would behave when I behaved unexpectedly. My intention was that “Big Brother” should confess it all because of the desperation he would feel because his plans were tampered with.

Let’s just say I often messed up in this game of context or incoherence many times after that, sometimes for over a day. Therefore, my mood as a teenager changes, in addition to my resistance and my acceptance. It stems from the fact that I tried to relativize everything and feel weightless around the feeling that there is nothing safe  to hold on to.

There is nothing infallible or anything I have absolute  control over. Because even your best friends can disappoint you, and the tests you studied the most for may be delayed. You can call it luck, but this is more whimsical than the drops that fall on a sunny day.

What do I need to do to be a good enough teenager?

But the most complicated part of growing up has to do with a question that included the impotence of my friends and I. I do not know what I have to do to be good, to be accepted. To feel loved and respected.

I have seen how this question has transformed my friends and how it has transformed me. The first condition can be to have the perfect body. Which is ridiculous considering that our bodies evolve in an anarchist way and basically do what they want. You may want to be tall and powerful, but if genetics has determined that this is not you, then you will not be. That’s when you begin to understand why someone invented the torture that is high heels.

You begin to understand that it is harder to get someone’s respect when you are short, and the same thing happens when your friends tell you that you are a little too heavy or a little too thin. The criteria can be perfectly adapted to the curves displayed on the women in magazines :  not too much, not too little, just the right amount.

People who used to know and recognize you are now beginning to treat you as if something was terrible about you. And they do it in such a radical way and so often, that  you begin to believe it yourself. That there is something wrong with you, something that is not as it should be. Furthermore, the things you do to fix this seem to make you stand out even more. Really –   your feet are a little too big and God does not want you to wear high heels.

Some questions do not seem to have answers

You want to ask if anyone knows how to compensate for what nature has not given you, or has given you too much of, but you have already seen how your friends have failed you.  In that moment, you could endure almost anything but seem vulnerable. It would be unacceptable to give them an indication that what they are saying to you, even if it is just silly, has any effect on you.

All you have left is to paint a picture of security. This is another attitude you need to have in order to be good. You must not only be confident, but always show it. That way, you get the impression that nothing means anything to you.

Within this profile that teenagers must have for their  “entry into life” ,  I realized that I also had to get good grades. It was a way to keep you happy. I also had to make it seem like I was making some effort. But not too much. I had to seem hardworking, but also smart.

Among my classmates it was also not well received to get bad grades. That is unless the group of teens sees it as your own choice instead of it being due to lack of skills. If they thought it was the latter, you were lost. You would always be thrown in with the losers. A group that is very easy to get into, but so too complicated to get out of.

In this sense, 5s and 5+ were the best grades. At the same time, it was also better not to raise your hand too often or to answer the teacher’s questions too quickly. Or not answering the question correctly at all, and, instead, saying something that the “important kids” would think was funny. This type of teenager is now called an “influencer”.

It is best to stay in the middle of the basket

One day in class we were taught about a very familiar curve,  Gaussian functions. Obviously, many natural distributions adapt to this type of function. Thus, there always seems to be a greater density around the middle, and less at the ends.

So this seemed very natural to me because being in the end is always a dangerous thing. Not manifesting emotions or doing it too much, never getting angry or being angry all the time. If you want to be a peaceful teenager, it is best to be in the middle of this curve. Here it is much easier to hide among the many others. Camouflage, as it used to be called, fits very well with the picture I as a teenager am trying to portray. The image that I am not bothered by the world.

Here ends the page of this diary, which I have misplaced by chance, of course? Saying this to your face would be embarrassing. That’s why I put it here so you can find it among my socks,  like a page that has fallen out in the middle of everything you’re trying to keep order.  Maybe now you can understand my struggle to find my own kind of order. A task that is not easy or simple, but which is exciting nonetheless.

And of course I love you, which I never seem to say…