for sixteen year old you,
親愛的然然,
The year is 2020, and America is in the middle of an international pandemic. By the time I figure out how to send this back in time, you’ll be 16-years-old. Most of the shops here are operating on shorter hours, and the beaches are closed. I live in San Diego now, because this is where I go to school. I don’t go back to Fremont all that often, but when I do, it doesn’t necessarily feel like I’m going home. It’s more like coming back to the shrine of my past self.
You came across my mind the other day and I wanted to write to you. Sometimes I think about how you’re holding up in that house. I’ll tell you that walls don’t get friendlier after you leave either. They still threaten to close in around you. But no matter, because you are stronger than the walls that try to trap you. You will escape.
I have so much to tell you. I want to share with you my life now because it is so much more beautiful than where you are. I just need you to tough it out a little longer.
I live in an apartment with three other girls that I’ve known since the first year of college. They are some of my best friends, and they support me even when I’m not always the best version of myself. They saw me hit rock bottom, and they still decided to stick around. I’m really busy a lot of the time, because I’m involved in so many things at school, and I work, too. I have two jobs, one for my own account and one for the voices at home. But it’s not so hard because it helps me sustain the way I live.
Oftentimes, I can’t tell when I am the best version of myself. People don’t always tell you either–they expect you to figure out for yourself whether or not you’re a “good” or “bad” person. So for the longest time, I convinced myself that I wasn’t a good person. That I did good things because I wanted so desperately to belong, to feel like I had the potential to be good. That I did good things for everyone but myself, to make them see me as more than the way I saw myself.
I’m telling you now that you’ll never be an editor for The Smoke Signal, and getting that rejection letter will be the worst way to end junior year. Yes, you will get a C in calculus, and Baba will look you straight in the eye and tell you that he has never been more disappointed in you in his life. So it doesn’t matter how long you study or how hard you try. They just won’t see it, because that was when he was the most disappointed in you. Not even when he locked you out of the house. Not even when you forgot how to play half of the piece you had memorized for the piano recital. That time. Most disappointed. Ever. But he’ll say it again. And again. And again. You’ll get used to it and learn to lift the veil covering the meaning of those painful words. But really, he’s just scared you’ll mess up like he did and end up like him. I’ll let you decide what that means for yourself.
I can still see it now. I can see Mama standing in the doorway, blocking you from sleep at night. Gaslighting you, twisting your words, turning them into weapons, knives stabbing at you in the dead air. I can see Baba lunge at you, pulling you to your knees, grabbing your hair, yanking you out the door. I can see the projectiles flying at you, whistling coolly past your skin, barely missing you, just barely. I can feel your excitement to leave in the morning, to escape to school, to see friends, to feel someone–anyone’s–kind arms around you. Because the second the bell dismisses you at 2:58 p.m. you have to go back to those walls, and you don’t get to leave until the next morning.
But now that I’m far away, I also see Baba and Mama in a different way. I don’t ever want to go back to them, but I think I look from another perspective than maybe you do. I also see Mama that night she tried to take you away, because she was scared that he would leave for good. I see Mama sending money back to Taiwan because your uncle got arrested again. I see Mama take care of you when you’re sick, even though her words are venomous when she berates you for not taking better care of yourself. In your future, I see Mama desperate to fix your mental sickness. Because you will drift so far away from her that it takes thousands of lifelines to bring you even remotely close to the shore. With time, Mama will start to share songs with you again. Like when you were little and you sat in the backseat and listened to her sing that Uncle Kracker song. As you get older, you’ll start to sing along with her too.
Mama comes around faster because she had the temple to help her understand. Baba is a bit out of touch, and his walls are nearly unbreachable. But I want you to think about Grandpa. I want you to think about Ah Gong, and how many years it took for you to accept that his alcoholic rage was something that had to be left in the past. I want you to look inside yourself for that love and I want you to give some of that to Baba. Because this is what I see. I see you when you first moved to Fremont and Mama was working past midnight every day to pay the rent. I see Baba taking you to the park and pushing you on the swings in the middle of the day. I see Baba driving two hours to IKEA to buy your first bed when you are 7-years-old. It takes so long to tie that freaking mattress to the roof of the car, and you hold onto that string for dear life. But that night, you slept in your own bed for the first time in your life. Because of Baba.
I know they hold that story over your head like guilt. Reminding you that they gave you everything, that you owe them everything, that you are indebted to them and ungrateful. I feel the million pieces of your heart scattering inside you, and I feel my skin crack with you. But let me ask you this. If you don’t open up the hole in your heart to them, how will they ever know how much you’re hurting inside?
They will spend a long time denying it, and they’ll make you think it’s your fault. They will throw away your pills, threaten to kick you out, even cut you off from time to time. But they will start to try. I promise you they will, and I just ask that you find it in your heart to forgive them. They will never apologize to you, and they will never know that they broke you.
But Mama will send you a heart emoji from time to time and Baba might say he loves you back. You will learn more about your family. And your fabric will start to heal. Slowly, oh so slowly. But please, I want you to stick around to see when it does.
College is a lot of freedom, and you’ll test the limits a good amount of the time. It takes you about three years to figure your brain out. Your first year is for mistakes. You will peel back layer after layer of hurt, and you’ll crash. But it is in your first year that mental health will truly be a concept you grasp.
Year two is for rock bottom. You will be homeless for a hot second, and you’ll actually try to erase your own existence. You’ll sort it out, but it takes a long time. It takes pretty much until now, May of 2020, exactly five years later before things start to come into focus.
But that’s not to say there aren’t beautiful moments. You will find your own clothing style, because you can wear whatever you want in college. No, the clothes you pick out and like to wear won’t make you a whore if they expose your shoulders or back like Baba says. You’ll wear accessories, and you’ll learn how to fill in your brows. You won’t be scared when you get lost in the middle of Sephora, and you’ll finally be able to get that double piercing you’ve been wanting since freshman year of high school.
You’re going to face your mental health sooner or later. You will be diagnosed with symptoms, and it will take awhile for you to really accept them. Because that means facing how deeply your past has scarred you. You will have to look at yourself in the mirror and choose whether or not you want to give a chance to the girl you see looking back at you. You will have to make that choice every single morning for many, many mornings before you really mean it when you decide she deserves a real chance.
This might hurt, but I really used to hate you. I hated you more than anyone else ever did, and I know that because I wanted to tear you apart. I wanted to dissect you to your core and piece you back together into something other than you. Because I know the reason why you’re barely making it. No matter how much you tell yourself that your family hates you, no matter how many times you say it was forsaken love, no matter how hard you try to lie to yourself, nothing will ever change the fact that you can’t stand living in your own skin.
I can say that because I tried to get rid of it. And no matter how hard I tried, it still clung onto me.
I’m not writing to you to let you know that life gets so much easier than where you’re at right now. It really doesn’t. Life after high school is still really fucking hard. I’ve made thousands of stupid mistakes and I still struggle to manage all my mental illnesses day to day. And I’ll tell you all of this now so at least you’re ready for it.
Heartbreak doesn’t get easier, and it pushes you to the pits of hell when you feel it. But you learn to cope with it better. And even if it doesn’t hurt any less each time, you rely on yourself to stand up and keep going again. Panic attacks are just as real, and sometimes, you’ll even see things. It’s pretty scary actually, the first time you imagine yourself falling through a hole in your head and the walls wrapping to catch you in free fall. You’ll think you’re going crazy, and for a couple months, you actually will go crazy. You’ll retreat into a deep, dark cave that no one around you can reach. So if you’re ever wondering why it’s so hard for people to reach you, think about where you’ve hidden yourself and whether or not it’s somewhere they can actually find without your help.
You won’t be the best student for a while. In fact, you’ll get worse than Cs in calculus and they’ll make you question whether or not school is even worth the effort. This one I can’t tell you much more than just wait. School really sucks, and you won’t learn a ton in lecture. You’ll learn more living through experiences firsthand. Patience, young lamb. I promise school will make sense with time.
I think part of why I hated you for so long was because deep down, I was a little jealous of you. You kept it together, and you only fell apart late at night when everyone was asleep and it was dark and there was nothing but you and the night and the darkness and your tears and the silence. I wanted to know why I never held it together as well as you. But I think it’s because I’m not trying to hide it from myself anymore. If I need to fall apart, I do. I started getting tired of hiding from myself, because I realized that if I had to be honest with anyone, I’d want it to be with me.
You’re going to pick up bad habits, and you won’t be the kindest to yourself. You probably got the gist of it, but when I said that I wanted to tear you apart, I meant it. Because I did. You will have to live with the consequences of these scars, the way people look at you, the way Baba and Mama tell you to hide them, the way you are ashamed when they catch your eye. But they will become a part of your tapestry, a patchwork quilt of skin sewn together when given time to heal. These fault lines are your history, so treasure them. Never forget how they will make you feel, and respect them for the lessons they will teach you. Because if your body doesn’t think you want it, it’ll do everything it can to change itself and convince you to hate it. Your skin will wax and wane to accommodate your withering skeleton. It is your skin after all, and it will always be there for you to grow into.
You know those feelings you have for other people? How much you care, the love and empathy, all of that? Sooner or later, you’re just going to have to accept that it’s possible for other people to feel that way about you. It won’t make sense, I promise you, but think of it this way. If it is possible for you to feel this much, sweetheart, then how come other people can’t feel that way about you? I know this is hard to accept when you think you are undeserving, but this isn’t time to cater to the evil voices in your head. This is time to believe in yourself.
Dearest Ella, I see now that you don’t see yourself the way I have learned to see you. Sixteen really fucking sucks, because you have to tackle so many obstacles in such little time. You are stretched thin, and you are only beginning a very long, yet taxing journey. You will forget how to dream and you will cry enough tears for a lifetime. You will fall countless times, and many of those times, no one will be there to catch you. You will stand at the edge of life and death, and you will be forced to choose between one or the other.
My darling Ella, I can’t tell you that you will fully heal. I can’t tell you that happiness really exists, because I’m still trying to figure that out. Honestly, even in five years, there’s still a lot that I am processing and trying to understand. But I can tell you that even now, in the midst of my confusion and unknowing, I am glad to be alive. I am glad that I chose to make it to this point in time to write to you. I am glad that I remember you, and I am glad that even if you don’t, I love you now.
然然, there is a very long journey ahead of you. So much will happen, and much of it will be difficult. Your strength will be tested, and there are many times you don’t think you’ll make it. I can’t promise you it’ll get easier than where you are now, but like I said, it is more beautiful. And it is so much more worth it because for the first time ever, I am hopeful and I believe that dreams can exist, even if they lie in the farthest bounds of my imagination.
Ella, I am doing these things for myself and no one else. There are so many things I can’t predict, but I will always promise you this:
If you’re ever wondering whether there’s someone out there thinking of you, I am. If you ever want to know if someone misses you, I do. If you ever feel lost, I’ll know. I will always come find you.
I’m never letting go of you again.
Forever and always,
二十一歲的你
Ellamental Thoughts 