Dearest Mallory,
I am writing to you with hands you would not recognize- callused, wrinkled hands. My fingers are gnarled and twisted but don't worry. On my wrists there are hemp bracelets and Earth-tone beads and silver charms from Barcelona, Paris, and Amsterdam. These hands are eighty years older than the ones you are holding this paper with now but darling they are still yours. They are still draped in memories and thrift store jewelry. Some things never change.
If I am not mistaken you are currently sixteen and utterly lost. You're in love and out of your mind and you cut off all those long blonde waves that cascaded down pale shoulders. You bite your lip when you lie and spend anxious nights anticipating midnight calls- praying for a blonde boy to sing you to sleep while you light lavender incense and scribble peace signs on your ankle. If I am not mistaken, you wish you were a tie-dye-tee-shirt goddess.
Before I go to sleep tonight I wanted to write you a letter to reassure you that yes, you do master calligraphy. You spent weeks in that Sunday morning class downtown but you can finally bring beauty to uppercase S's and lowercase y's. Your signature makes overweight store owners gawk- they have never seen penmanship so closely resemble art. And don't worry, you fall in love. Oh, you fall in love. Over. And over. And over. You surrender yourself to brown eyes and acoustic guitars with engraved initials of reckless lovers. Sometimes you get hurt but you wrap that broken heart in silk scarves and mend it with green tea and Kashi bars. You paint your pain on white linen canvases and hang your masterpieces on a lonely wall. You grow into a Picasso fueled by these next few years of pain so keep all this beauty in mind when you’re drenching your pillow in sweet tasting tears.
Remind yourself daily that there is a rhyme and reason to the seemingly random disaster of our America. Stop eating Weight Watchers fudge bars when you could devour straight up chocolate heaven from your favorite ice cream parlor. I know you think your sides are chubby and your thighs are too wide but trust me on this one, one day you will realize how beautiful you were and long for that summer figure. One day your joints will ache while you do yoga in Central Park. You'll look down at your thirty-something year old cellulite body and remember the days when you could wear low rider jeans and not terrify lollipop licking toddlers. You will regret every time you looked in the mirror and hated what you saw. Please start loving yourself, before you start losing yourself. Please stop writing your poems for everyone else- yours is the heart that needs those lovely words the most. You have always loved to fix what’s broken- always lived to breathe life into the eyes of the hopeless. But as a personal favor to me my dear Mallory, breathe life into your own eyes. Learn to play the guitar. Tell that boy you love him. Forgive your father for not being able to hold you when you needed those arms more than ever. Embrace your best friend. Make the world as beautiful as you want it to be.
Live for today. No regrets. No what-ifs. This is your time to shine, darling.
Love,
Mallory