My Imaginary Reply to Amanda Gilford, Grade 5 - 5/18/2007 in 2005 - 2007: High School

(Or, An Experiment in Exclamation Marks)

Today in the hallway, I was handed a pink peice of paper folded into thirds. It had my name written on it in large, awkward letters. I opened it and it said this:

Dear Aidan O'Connor,

Hi! My name is Amanda Gilford. I go to Thompson Elementary School. Were did you go to elementary school? I play softball and ballet. Do you play any sports? My favorite color is light pink and lime green. What's yours?

We learned about the senior safari today. It sounds really fun! Are you going to go? Are you going to go to prom? Healthy choices are important during the last month of school. Keep that in mind. Congratulations on your graduation!

Best Wishes :-) Amanda Gilford.

It had little pictures in the margins too, like of a ballet slipper, and a diploma, and a girl in what looks like a witch's hat but I'm assuming is supposed to be a graduation cap, and a palm tree, which I guess represents senior safari. (I don't really even know what senior safari is. I should probably start thinking about those things.) All seniors get these letters. All of the fifth graders are assigned a random senior and have to write a letter telling the senior not to drink or use drugs at prom or around graduation. It is supposed to be cute and guilt-trippy.

I smiled. Then I started thinking that maybe I was supposed to reply. Her address was written in the top corner. Then I tried to think of what my reply would actually be.

Dear Amanda Gilford,

Hi! This is Aidan O'Connor. I used to go to South Elementary School. I play marching band.

Seriously though, thanks for your advice about healthy choices. What you said is very true: healthy choices are important during the last month of school, like they always are, and I should definately be keeping that in mind.

You got me thinking, though, about what it means, exactly, to "make healthy choices". As you are probably aware, what your teacher means by "making healthy choices" is not doing drugs or having sex (actually, you probably don't know about that part yet, do you?) and generally being a good girl.

The thing is though, Amanda, I am a good girl. I have never done drugs or come anywhere close to having sex. Yet I am clearly not a very healthy person. I have clearly not been making very healthy choices. You've probably heard about the bad things that can happen to your body and your mind if you do drugs. You can get cancer, or wreck your liver, or kill off your brain cells one by one, or lose the ability to drive and kill yourself by trying to. These things certainly happen, and you should certainly avoid them, by making healthy choices.

But did you know that there are other bad things that can happen to your body and your mind, that have nothing to do with drugs? For example, you can start twitching all the time, without being able to control it. Or you can get addicted to mutilating yourself by pulling your hair out of your skin, just like you can get addicted to cigarettes! Or your body can just stop letting you go to sleep, so that you're tired and sick all the time. Or you can lose control of your emotions twice a week and scare your friends and family by freaking out and trying to run away from wherever you are. These things happen too! You know what causes them? Unhealthy choices!

Do you know what unhealthy choices I made? Here's the main one: I kept trying to find ways to define myself that didn't really matter. I thought I was defined by being smart, so I joined math club, and I read a lot, and I was always the first to finish my test, and whenever I knew the answer to a question, I made sure everyone knew. I also thought I was defined by being a good musician, so I joined five thousand bands, and I tried to be the conductor of one of the bands, and when that didn't work I started my own band and was the conductor of that. Here's the worst one: I defined myself as being an outsider. I thought I was too good to be pretty, too good to be cool. I was too good to have too many friends. I thought I was too good for almost anything that other people did. I thought I was too good for emotions. I was especially too good for silly crushes.

But it all blew up in my face Amanda! I stopped being smart enough to get As without doing the homework. I stopped being able to handle my hard classes, and I freaked out and ended up in the hospital because my body had had enough. I was no longer a smart kid, and because of that I didn't know who I was anymore! And when I tried to push down my emotions, they fought me, and they won! They do whatever they damn well please now, and I don't even know what to do about it! My silly crushes swelled up into obsessions. Like how if you pick at a zit too much to get it to go away, it'll turn into a big old flaming infection. (By the way, don't pick at your zits, Amanda.) The obsessions stepped all over me. They made it nearly impossible to feel anything else. And that's not the worst of it - I dealt with my emotions so badly that I ended up pushing away a friend who could have loved me. And then my emotions and I were engaged in such a terrible war over that that I pushed away my best friend in the world.

The music thing's going okay, but I have a feeling it won't last forever. I've already stopped enjoying performances.

Do you know what I wish I'd done? I wish I'd gone to parties. I wish I'd had some more friends, and maybe some more boyfriends. I wish I'd been a normal kid instead of a good girl and an outsider. I wish I were going to prom. I'm not. I wish, maybe, that I'd done drugs a few times. Yes, yes, I know that drugs are bad. But has it ever occured to you, Amanda, that not everyone takes drugs because they've been "pressured" to? Some people actually choose to take them! Because there are good things about them too! They feel good! When you're my age, you'll know lots of people who take drugs, and not because they were made to by their evil friends. These are nice people who take drugs because drugs make you relax!

That is one of the healthiest choices that I can think of: relaxing. I never relax, Amanda. I always just fail to relax. I am just so terribly concerned with everything that I do not have any fun at all.

So in conclusion Amanda, without realizing it, you have giving me excellent advice. I definately need to make healthy choices during this last month of school. But there are things even less healthy than the unhealthy things that you've learned about. It's them that I need to try to stop doing.

Here's the advice that I would give to you, Amanda, before you stop being a kid and start being a teenager, which is an infinitely harder thing to be: Relax! Have fun! Don't be afraid of anything! Don't hold on to anything too hard! And for God's sake, don't try to formulate any idea of who you are! It doesn't matter! You are Amanda Gilford!

Fondly, Aidan O'Connor.

I thought about it and decided that I wouldn't actually send this reply.