To The Girl I used to Be

Dear seventeen-year-old me,

I want to tell you how much I loved you. Now as a thirty-two-year-old trans-man, I love you more than you think people did. And believe me sweetheart, lots of people love you. Your Mom loves you so much. Grandma and Grandpa love you. Trevor loves you in his own annoying sort of way.

Even if he is an asshole to us, he loves us.

I want you to know that we’re not a waste of space. That we take up enough space in everyone else’s lives. We’re not too much in the slightest bit. A bit too closed off from others and from us. But other than that, we’re not taking up too much space. We will not be a burden on others if we tell others our feelings or needs.

We really need to tell others our damn feelings and needs more.

Not telling anyone what we need or want is not grown-up. Others can’t help us with anything if we don’t tell them. They’re not psychics and you know that they’re not psychic. They cannot read our minds at all. So, they won’t know that we need a break or anything unless we tell them what we need.

There is also something that I need to tell you about. Something that has been weighing on us for the past fourteen years now. It’s something that I know that you wholeheartedly believe to be true even though it isn’t. That your feelings in this case aren’t true and your mind is just making you feel worse than you are.

You have a right to grieve Andre.

Sure, we weren’t close before he died. And yes, we could have spent more time with him when we were growing up. But you never would have thought that he would have done what he did. You’re not a psychic. You can’t see into the future. Not everyone would have thought that he wouldn’t make it to his eighteenth birthday.

And no matter how much you want to say you had a feeling, you don’t really.

Andre’s death isn’t our fault. He didn’t take his life just because we didn’t spend a lot of time with him as a kid. Or spent too much time online. You are a kid. You were a kid who thought you had years to spend with him. Years and years that aren’t going to happen. That isn’t ever going to happen now. I know that you feel like you didn’t do enough but you’re a kid. A kid who can’t do as much as the adults in your life can.

What your mom’s-ex-husband should have done.

Mom did her best to help him in ways she had tools to. And she doesn’t blame you for what happened to him. Neither does Trevor. Also, for the love of everything don’t blame him either. He’s just a kid like you are. He spent more time with our brother than we did, and he couldn’t reach him no matter how hard he tried.

Andre’s death happened because his mom’s-ex-husband’s fault for not trying. For not doing more when he had the tools to help him. Get him the medication that everyone that cared about our baby brother knew he needed. But he didn’t as he listened to his abusive family. The family that never really loved or cared for him.

Also don’t listen to them or speak to them. They’re not worth the headache they’re going to give you about this.

You’re above them. You’re not at fault for Andre’s death in the slightest bit. And I promise that we won’t be destroyed over his death. That yes it hurts to move on without him. There’s so much that we want to share with him and so much everyone else does. And no, everyone isn’t going to check in on you during those days or years after. Check to see how you’re holding up the years after Andre’s death on his anniversary.

But you’re going to be alright.

You will keep going on and you will survive this whole thing. I promise that we’re going to turn out to be alright. Have lots of friends. Go places that we never really thought we’d go when we were a whole lot younger than you are now. And that we’ll do things that we never thought we could do before.

I promise kid, you’re going to turn out just fine.

I love you so much,

Your future self.