You are not ugly

Dear younger me,

The title of this letter isn't the best, because I know you have never thought yourself to be ugly. But I do know that you often think of yourself as plain, goofy, and puny.

You take a while to grow into the family nose that you inherited, and I still remember the first person that ever made fun of you for it. I imagine the fact that it was a girl didn't help matters much. Don't get stuck on it, because honestly, no one that matters has ever said anything about it.

You aren't tall or overly muscular (sorry, you're still not). But I do remember that you are fast and agile, use that. You can excel at a lot of things if you forget about what you're not or can't be and focus on what you are or can be.

Your clothes are sometimes crummy and often out of style, but don't forget that you help pick them out sometimes. Ask mom to buy you two or three solid color t-shirts; two neutral (stay away from white) and one not. When your clothes aren't flashy, you can repeat them more often without it being as obvious that you don't have a very big selection to choose from.

Your jeans are fine but your shoes suck. In seventh and eighth grade, ask Mr. Leonard if he has any glue to fix the soles. That will make you less self-conscious. Take better care of each pair of shoes that you have and keep the old ones to wear outside.

Don't worry about brand name clothing yet. I have learned that marketing is way more important than packaging. The brand name on the clothing is just the packaging. You are marketing yourself every time you get dressed. Care more, ear clothes that fit you properly, and make sure they are clean.

Oh, and keep your hair cut. It's only $5 at the cosmetology school.

You don't have much, so appreciate what you have, treat it well, and don't worry. I promise we are okay.

Postscript - not for him, but for you

This one I have to take some ownership in because to this day, I still struggle with men's fashion. At least now most of the problems occur by choice. If I had known just a little bit, or had some guidance, I would have been better off. My mom let me pick out my own clothes sometimes, but of course they were from one of the marts (Wal or K). I made poor choices in the name, sometimes in the name of longevity. I would get pants that were dramatically too big just so they would fit me longer, although I wasn't growing all that fast, and they looked terrible.

The hardest things was shoes. As I recall I would get new shoes once per year. They were always cheap, but none were as bad as the ones I had in junior high school. For each of the two years I got my new shoes for basketball season, and both years they were old man Reebok running shoes. They were okay enough for basketball, although all of my friends were able to purchase the "team shoe" pitched by some rep from somewhere. While everyone else was wearing matching black Nike's and looking cool, I was wearing all white Reeboks and looking like I got lost looking for the shuffleboard court.

I could stomach looking different; the problem was when track season came around in spring. By then my shoes were pretty well worn slick and both years, the soles of both shows had started to peel apart starting at the toe. When I ran, they sounded like flip-flops. I had to adjust my gait in order to minimize the flipping and flopping, but it was difficult to fully prevent. When it was raining during practice, we would run laps in the gym. More than once, everything felt silent, except for the flip-flop of my old man shoes. I wish I would have thought to ask the shop teacher (Mr. Leonard) for some rubber cement to fix them. I know he would have let me.

I know it sounds funny, but it was humiliating. I never said anything because I just stuffed those feelings down into the same little space that held all of my other ones.

If you ever see a little kid with uncharacteristically flip-floppy shoes, please offer to fix or replace them, but please do so sensitively. As a teenager I received charity in the form of threadbare, oversized clothes and half-eaten pizza from a close friend's mom who I'm sure was well-intentioned. But given their social status, it came across to me as being easier to give me their trash than to take it to the curb. That's not to say they should have given me something nicer, because they didn't owe me one single thing. In hindsight, maybe this one is my problem...but it's hard to know for sure.