i.

In Alice Munro's short story collection, Too Much Happiness, there's a piece called Face.  It was about a boy who had a big, wine-colored birthmark on his face. This birthmark gave his father a reason not to like him, even calling him, "a chunk of chopped liver." 

He had a childhood friend named Nancy, the daughter of the woman who was staying at their guesthouse. The two children became inseparable and most of the story was about their adventures. One day, Nancy found a can of red paint and smudged her face with it to look like the boy with his birthmark. The boy was offended, thinking it too red when his face had, as what he thought, a brownish hue. He ran to his mother and when she saw Nancy's face painted red, all hell broke loose. The mother insulted her and called her names and when Nancy's mother came to rescue, a nasty confrontation followed. Nancy and her mother moved out and the two children never saw each other again.

Later on, the boy heard the news that Nancy intentionally scarred her own face.

ii.

There are things you do for other people in which you mean well but may end up being misunderstood. Did Nancy paint her face red to mock the boy? In the end, as if for restitution of a lost friendship, she ended up actually scarring her own face. Perhaps what she was trying to tell the boy in the first place was: we are the same; there's no need to be alone. But the boy, insecure despite the facade of strength, reacted too quickly and saw it as an insult.  

If we are on the receiving end of a gesture, we must first understand its purpose - if it is for malice or for something good. It is easy to be carried away by emotions but we need to discern what we feel so we can act in a way that we will not regret. Sometimes, it can be too late to take back whatever we put out in the world. Although instant reactions may be the most sincere, or the most raw, I still believe in the right timing, in silence and in stillness when you know you may say or do something harsh. Tact need not to be stripped off of honesty and sincerity, but it is to be considerate and sensitive, not just to others, but to yourself.

iii.

The boy, now as an adult, had a dream where a few lines of a poem was recited to him. After much looking, he found the whole poem:

with love,
abelink

"In the original version of 'Mary Poppins', there is a heartbreaking chapter about a pair of infant twins. As babies, they speak to a starling, and they understand what the wind whispers to the cherry trees on its way back up into the sky. The babies swear that they'll never be the adults who coo ridiculously at their bedsides, oblivious to the language of the flowers and bees. But, of course, they do forget, and they do grow up to use condescending words for things too beautiful for speech." (Larocca, 2014)

Growing up is both wonderful and horrifying. Things are changing fast: graduation, being away from my parents for the first time, and looking for work that is fulfilling both financially and emotionally. The life I have always known - the kind that is quite sheltered and half-buried in books - is being restructured and that can be frightening. But then, growing up may also lead me to situations where I can know myself better, where I can delve into my own unknown depths, and where I can thrive. A line from a poem by Rilke says, "You have not grown old and it is not too late to dive into your increasing depths where life calmly give out its own secret."
But you lose some when you gain some. I may start abandoning the child within me, taking such drastic measures to prove that I have grown up. As much as I promise myself to never lose sight of what matters most to me and to hold on to my ideals, I may also unknowingly forget and break that promise.

Someone at work remarked how my age will no longer begin with one ever again (unless, of course, I live for a hundred years) and that left quite an impression on me. I've known all along that it was bound to happen but when it did, it felt strange and new. I am now twenty. On my way to work, it hit me how today, twenty years ago, my mama gave birth to me, that this miracle called birth happened to me, and it just blew my mind.

I hope this letter will remind my future (grown-up) self of this general optimism - and even of some fear - towards growing up.

with love,
abelink

~

New York Magazine article on Tavi Gevinson growing up by Amy Larocca, 11-24 August 2014 issue

Poem by Rainer Maria Rilke