ASSIGNMENTS:
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Anonymous
Providence, Rhode Island USA
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REPORTS:
PREVIOUS NEXT
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Advice, age 6:
1. Absorb as much as humanly possible. The thing your 6-year-old mind is unable to comprehend is bigger than you had originally planned, things will change radically over the course of the next year, and you will learn to tell left and right apart through the use of incomprehensible hand signs. Sled down the hill in the backyard as much as you can before March rolls around - they haven't told you yet, but you'll be leaving soon.
2. I would also like to advise that you swear off double-chocolate donuts, sunglasses, and The Little Mermaid as soon as possible. Don't ask questions, just trust me; I know because I'm you.
Advice, age 7:
3. Ask him to stay. Seven-year-olds have a whole lot more power than most people give them credit for, and such power is indubitably amplified when said seven-year-old happens to be standing on a long asphalt driveway holding a tightly packed suitcase. Extra points if the suitcase is pink.
4. Also, if I remember correctly, your hair is still lemony-blond - am I right? Well, don't get too excited. It'll start to fade soon, I promise. I know because I'm you.
Advice, age 12:
5. Do your homework. It doesn't matter if you do it well, I promise, it's just that one day you'll be seventeen and you'll want to go to Harvard or Brown or Yale, but mostly Brown, and you won't be able to, and it'll be almost entirely due to the fact that you never started doing homework when you were twelve in the seventh grade.
Advice, age thirteen:
6. Stay in Barrington. If you let your mother move you away, I promise that one day you will wake up in a musty condominium and have no idea how you got there in the first place. Everything will be gray, and most things will smell like citrus scented dryer sheets.
Advice, age 15:
7. Take high school seriously. I know it all seems like a joke at the time -- and quite a good joke, to be honest -- but it's not. Believe me. One day, you'll be sitting in a rigid chair across a desk from someone who looks very official, and they'll mention this THING, this paper monstrosity of a THING which I believe is called a transcript... I'm pretty sure that's what it's called. Anyways, they'll have it in their hands, and they'll be telling you it counts. I'm only telling you this so that it doesn't sound as shocking to you as it did to me. I know because I'm you, and also because this happened again last Tuesday, and it's still as terrifying now as it was the first time.
8. Don't get in Lee's car. You'll think he's charming, he'll tell you he's a B-student, he'll be wearing a gray shirt with green sleeves. Never trust a boy in a baseball shirt, no matter how cute or pathetic he looks in it. He is not charming, and he is definitely not a B-student.
9. Keith will offer you a cigarette at a party on Alicia's porch, I think it will be July. Please, just pretend you don't hear him this time.
Advice, age 16:
10. You'll meet someone, he'll live far away. He'll have blue eyes and he'll read you poetry. The first time you see him, he's wearing pajamas. He's high. You won't know it at the time, but he is. He'll tell you later on the phone.
11. He'll smell like cigarette smoke and laundry detergent, and it sounds like a horrible smell, but it's something you can feel in the bottom of your stomach when everything else is gone.
12. Tell him you love him before he leaves to go back home. You think you're too young to know what something like love is in the first place, and there's a good chance you are, but this is the closest you've come.
13. Make sure you see him, make sure you say goodbye. Touch his right hand with your own before he gets on the train with his shoes untied and his headphones blaring. You'll think you're too young to know what something like love is in the first place, but that's when you'll realize that maybe you're not.
14. I know because I'm you.
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