Dear Little Me

There’s a picture of me when I am four; a chubby faced little girl on ‘Lion King’ bed sheets, holding a gigantic red book in her tiny, pudgy fingers. I was recovering from the chicken pox, and the only thing I wanted was a book to help me feel better. By age five I was reading chapter books. I was in awe of how stories could instantly make me feel better, how they could make a stomach ache go away, or a grumpy day turn into one filled with laughter. Early childhood afternoons were spent with my grandma, who would take me to the Phoenix public library and fish out any book I wanted from the clearance bin. Afterward she would take me for a giant vanilla twister cone from McDonalds.

As the years passed, my appetite for reading became insatiable. Some kids sneak snacks late at night, some play video games…I would read. I would hunker down on my pillows, the words on the pages of my book illuminated by the light of my blue, hexagon shaped alarm clock. The alarm clock had a button that when pushed, shined a red laser light reflecting the time in big analog numbers upon the ceiling. So many times I would be sitting in a dark hallway without a light and my dad would hand me a bag of carrots and say “Here, for your eyes.” It was his way of trying to understand a child that didn’t want to be outside constantly, but instead was busy living out lives of characters in faraway lands.

My parents split when I was young. For a few years afterward, I lived with my mother and grandmother. When I turned eight, my mom sent me to live with my dad permanently. It was a difficult adjustment period for me. My step-mother had six kids, and they had already accepted my older sister who had been living with my dad since the divorce. I felt uprooted and displaced. I missed my mom, and I so dearly missed trips to the library with my grandma. After the move, my mom became less and less present in my life. I would write her letters, begging for her to take me back, only to not hear from her for months. In the Summer, I would go visit her for a month, but it never seemed like enough time.

I was nine the first time I read ‘Dear Mr. Henshaw’ by Ms. Beverly Cleary. I had already read all I could of the ‘Ramona’ series, wanting to be exactly like the eccentric titular character, and was ready for something different. The change of pace was welcomed, as I found I related quite a bit to the lonesome Leigh Botts. Within those letters and diary entries, I felt like pieces of my heart were being pulled out and put on paper. I didn’t understand the feelings I had every day, and therefore was highly emotional and easily upset. I was often called a cry baby and crazy, all because I felt this hurricane of emotions raging inside and with no way to calm them.

Reading ‘Dear Mr. Henshaw’ helped me to see I wasn’t crazy, that someone else knew how I felt. It showed me that there was someone who was just as confused as I was, and that was okay. It was okay to feel things, however deeply you needed to. Of course, I wouldn’t fully understand this sentiment until many years later. As a kid, it just feels good to be included, and that’s what this book made me feel like. It was at this point in my life I decided to start journaling. I collected any notebook I could find, and kept them all in Nike shoeboxes that belonged to my dad, under my bed. I began to document everything, what I ate that day, the chronicles of recess at school, my ever-changing crushes on boys who didn’t reciprocate my displays of affection, so I resorted to kicking them in the groin. I was never without paper and pen. With journaling came the desire to create. Like Leigh, I wanted to become a real author. I would make up funny poems that had no sense to them, and I even began writing a novel called ‘The Travelers’ about a group of runaway orphans. Unfortunately, the only copy of my work was spit upon and thrown away after a decidedly heated fist fight with my older sister. This collection of journals and poems grew with me all the way into my adult life, and oddly enough I always write as though I’m divulging my thoughts to an old friend…an “imaginary” Mr. Henshaw if you will.

I didn’t think about ‘Dear Mr. Henshaw’ until many years later, when I was 22 years old. I was about to get married, and went down to Phoenix to see my mom. We chatted for a bit, just small talk about things that didn’t really matter. As I was about to leave, she asked me to come with her into the bedroom, that there was something she wanted to show me. She pulled out a large blue travelers trunk, the inside filled to the brim with school photos, trinkets and ornaments made by little me, and every single thing I ever wrote her. There were poems, and letters, and cards, stories about horses and dogs. I laughed and cried as I read them all, taking pictures to send to my future husband. As I drove the two hours back home, I remembered the book that ignited in me the desire to write and tell my stories. As soon as I could, I went to the nearest book store and picked up a worn down copy of ‘Dear Mr. Henshaw’ and devoured it in an hour. The words still felt close to my heart, the experiences of Leigh made me laugh just as hard, and I realized that even though years had passed, the words were like seeing an old friend and being enveloped in a large, warm hug. I smiled as I thought about the words that after 13 years were still just as true. “I felt sad and a whole lot better at the same time.”