[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BlogPosting","@id":"https:\/\/equallywed.com\/letter-to-my-teenage-self\/#BlogPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/equallywed.com\/letter-to-my-teenage-self\/","headline":"A letter to my teenage self","name":"A letter to my teenage self","description":"A letter from a young woman to her teenage self regarding coming out, overcoming a difficult break up, finding the love of your life, and growing up. ","datePublished":"2016-12-28","dateModified":"2016-12-29","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/equallywed.com\/author\/contributor\/#Person","name":"Guest Writer","url":"https:\/\/equallywed.com\/author\/contributor\/","identifier":4969,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bfa44c65dd85c24f1064c7fb24017ff9bf74e19d9fc4aebad4cb90210213412e?s=96&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bfa44c65dd85c24f1064c7fb24017ff9bf74e19d9fc4aebad4cb90210213412e?s=96&r=g","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Equally Wed","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"http:\/\/equallywed.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/equally-wed-lgbtq-weddings-logo.jpg","url":"http:\/\/equallywed.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/equally-wed-lgbtq-weddings-logo.jpg","width":218,"height":60}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/equallywed.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/A-letter-to-my-teenage-self-1.jpg","url":"https:\/\/equallywed.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/A-letter-to-my-teenage-self-1.jpg","height":667,"width":1000},"url":"https:\/\/equallywed.com\/letter-to-my-teenage-self\/","about":["Community"],"wordCount":1084,"keywords":[" lesbian","break-up","coming out","engaged","gay teens","love it love","personal essay"],"articleBody":"A letter to my teenage self from a 25 year old lesbianDear Teenage Self,  I know this may sound crazy, but this is your future self writing to you. I know that at your young age of seventeen, you\u2019re feeling lost and in need of direction. As it hard as it is for you to believe, I\u2019m writing to you from the age of twenty-five. This is significant because at this age, you don\u2019t think you\u2019ll ever survive to be twenty-five. I\u2019m here to tell you that you will.  Up until this point, you\u2019ve lived a normal and happy life. You\u2019ve grown up in a good family, you get good grades, and you have a small but close group of friends. You play volleyball, and you\u2019re the Drum Major of the Marching Band–could it get any better? But as you get older, you realize that you\u2019re not like your friends around you. You really don\u2019t care to date boys–why are the other girls so obsessed with this? You start to feel like you\u2019re different, but you push this out of your mind.  You\u2019re almost eighteen when you first kiss a girl. It\u2019s in your room, as you\u2019re getting ready for a date with a boy. Even though it\u2019s meant as harmless practice, it feels different. Even more alarming is that you feel different. You feel as if you\u2019ve crossed a strange boundary. You tell no one about this, insisting it will never happen again.  The thought of this event lingers in your mind, and while you realize that this has made you feel a way that no boy has ever made you feel. You feel a sinking pit in the bottom of your stomach.  It\u2019s at the age of seventeen when your secret is revealed, and you truly understand what it means to feel ashamed. Your former friends turn their heads away from you–your teachers stare at you intently and scribble notes in their notebooks. For the first time, you feel alone. Your parents take you to a therapist, and they demand their old daughter back. You realize that you don\u2019t even know that girl anymore.  The thought that you\u2019re a burden to everyone begins as a whisper, but soon it is a wailing siren that never seems to stop. Looking around, you can only see the destruction that your \u201caffliction\u201d has caused. You wish you were dead.  You truly consider what it would mean to die, and spend countless nights pondering. On your darkest night, you sit alone in your bathroom. You think about the friends you\u2019ve lost, along with your former identity and self. You somberly realize that perhaps you\u2019re not the victim of this story, but the villain. You did this, and you deserve the destruction you caused. But even in this despair, you hear a voice in the back of your mind that tells you to breathe and just go to sleep.  While you don\u2019t want to listen to this presence, you have to, because it continually tells you to keep moving. Perhaps this is a guardian angel come to save you? You start opening up to your therapist, and begin taking antidepressants. The dark thoughts that were once so loud become whispers. Before you know it, you\u2019re accepted into college and realize that there may be a way out of this hell that once was home.College is a myriad of self exploration and acceptance. You\u2019re crying your eyes out when you finally say the word \u201cGay\u201d aloud to a therapist. The more you say it, the less scary it becomes. You begin watching \u201cThe L Word\u201d, and you start watching Ellen everyday. This is the first moment when you realize that it is possible to be normal and gay.  Through and after college, you\u2019ll bounce from one relationship to another, desperately seeking someone to love your new self. You\u2019ll face a lot of heartbreak, and you\u2019ll often question if this is all worth it. Finally, after one devastating break up, you think the thing you\u2019ve pushed out of your mind for so long: perhaps you\u2019re meant to be alone. You\u2019ll mourn this loss for awhile, but you\u2019ll think back to those dark times in high school, and you\u2019ll realize that you\u2019re stronger than you think. You begin to get to know yourself, and this self is one that you like. You realize that perhaps you are needing to love yourself, perhaps this is the relationship you should pursue.  Self, I don\u2019t even know if you\u2019ll believe this, but it\u2019s precisely at this moment that you meet the love of your life. A pretty girl in a bar buys you a drink, and asks you to pick the winning horse in the Kentucky Derby. Miraculously, you do, and that girl buys you dinner. Fast forward a few years, and that girl becomes your wife. You\u2019ll wonder why you never found her earlier, but then you\u2019ll realize that you weren\u2019t ready then, and that she wasn\u2019t either. Timing is everything, self.  So, at the age of twenty-five, you\u2019ll be living as an out gay woman, and you\u2019ll be engaged to be married. You\u2019ll go back to school and get a Master\u2019s degree, and this will be followed by your dream job. You\u2019ll realize that the words you write have power, and you\u2019ll hope to inspire people who may be scared to be their true selves. That\u2019s what I\u2019m writing to you. I had to tell you that you do have the power to rewrite your story. You just have to pick up the pen.  Oh, and one final thing self. For the next eight years, you\u2019ll search high and low for someone to save you, and to be the hero of your story. The crazy thing is that the hero of this story has been with you all along. She\u2019s been staring right back at you in the mirror.  Sincerely,  Your Twenty-Five Year Old SelfCeleste Seymore continues to write about gay culture in the Deep South. She and her fiance Kaytlyn plan to marry in November 2016, and live with their two cats and a dog. You can follow Celeste on Twitter @celesteseymore and on Instagram @celestialseasonings11."},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"A letter to my teenage self","item":"https:\/\/equallywed.com\/letter-to-my-teenage-self\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]