Dear Moron,

I guess when you get to a major turning point, it's pretty natural to think about where you came from. Or maybe it's just that I'm in the process of packing up, and I found a few mementos from my high school days. Either way, it's related to the fact that I'm about to get married, move away, and start working for a living as opposed to doing mostly fun stuff for a living.

I was fifteen once, interestingly enough. Frankly, I was ill-prepared for being a fifteen-year-old male, which is probably why I did a pretty crappy job of it. The bottom line is that at fifteen, life, generally, sucks. There really isn't a claim you can make to the contrary. I know for a fact that every time my parents told me that "these are the best years of your life" (we've all heard it) my general reaction was "oh, shit."

So I've been realizing lately that the face looking back at me from the mirror is no longer fifteen years old. He's seen a not insubstantial amount of the world, and he's lived a rather interesting life.

Didn't seem like it was going to turn out that way at fifteen, but then it never does, does it?

At any rate, I was wondering recently what I would write if the laws of physics could be bent, slightly, for just a moment. What if I could write to the fifteen year old I used to be? What would I say?

Dear moron,

I figured this greeting would be the best way to convince you that I'm you. I mean, who else would greet you that way? Of course, if you want more proof, look up on the very top shelf of your closet. You'll find a shoebox labeled "playboys" (brilliant hiding place, by the way). In that shoebox, you'll find a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, a bottle of isopropyl alcohol, a package of double-edged razor blades, anywhere between two and six sterile gauze pads, and a roll of surgical tape. Nobody but you knows about that, right?

While we're on the subject, cut back a little (no pun intended). I'm not going to tell you to quit just what say that instead of three or four times a week cut it down to, say, two or three? You're not going to quit any time soon. And you're going to try (and fail) to do so a number of times between now and the time that you're looking at my face in the mirror, and the truth is, those blades helped you through a lot of rough patches in your life. As coping mechanisms go, you could do worse, I guess.

Okay, depending on when you're getting this, you've either just flunked a math exam, or you're about to. That'll be a first for you, won't it? You'll deal, and you'll be stronger for it. Take my word for it, it's not the end of the world. About five years from now, nobody's going to give a rat's ass what grades you got in High School. Believe me, you have a lot more school to go through before you're done. High school is gonna get lost in the flurry long before you're done.

I know that right now you're thinking that you're going to be a doctor, and that's all there is to it. Well, you're not. And interestingly enough, that's a decision you'll make after being accepted to med school. I know, weird, huh? The point I'm trying to make is that life has a nasty habit of never working out quite the way you plan for it to work out. If I were to tell you now that your first three publications in a scientific journal would be in astrophysics, what would you say? What if I told you that the next three would be in the American Journal of Physiology and the Biophysical Journal (times two)? Exactly.

If you're fifteen, you also just got dumped for the first time, or you're just about to. Sorry for the spoiler. It hurts. A lot. But you'll survive that too. Maybe you need things like that to happen. Maybe it's things like that that make you stronger. All I'm going to say is just wait 'till you meet your future wife. You've read Romeo & Juliet as well as all of the classic romances who talk about that one instant when they find that one person and they just know that their life is never going to be the same again. You don't buy all that bullshit, do you? Trust me: you will.

Don't worry. Let things fall the way that they should. Let them fall the way that they will, and don't freak out when they don't quite fall where you want them to. The only constant in life is that it's never what you expect. It's always moving, always changing, always persevering.

Oh, and when dad tells you that these are the best years of your life, you can call bullshit on that one. You're nowhere near the best years of your life. Not yet.

Keep an eye out for me. I'll be the one looking back at you from the mirror in about fourteen years.

Sincerely,
Drew