Dear Pan 10, 11, 12 & 13

Things I wish I could tell myself

I want to tell myself things.

Things a child always wondered. A thing he never asked. I want to tell all the children. Write a book entitled - a thousand little questions answered. I doubt anyone would let them read it. Children aren’t supposed to wonder, but they do.

So I'm going to begin here. A letter to myself. Things I wish I'd known. 

Breasts are strange things. They’re not like the balloons you always imagined them to be, not the blown up condoms, so the n*****s stick out, you put inside your mother’s old bra. More akin to the flesh on the inside of your arm. Exactly that texture, exactly that consistency. Not that I’ve felt many breasts. Still working on that.

I would tell my younger self not to worry so much. Train but don’t worry. When I was thirteen I was so enmeshed in a web of lies, I felt I would never get free. You can tell the people you lied to at thirteen your silly little lie and they will forgive you. Time makes what was serious then - trivial. You will get out of the web and mess of adolescence.

You will not always believe what you now believe.

Also a lot of being an adult is figuring things out on the fly. I’ve never touched a thermostat before, but I can figure it out. You don’t have to know how to do everything ahead of time, you’ll just forget most of it anyway. Living on your own, lovers, life - there’s no set way, but as long as your problem solving skills are good, then likely you are too.

I would tell myself that there are things you cant know however much you try. It’s all chemical. You haven’t felt hormones until you’re in a relationship. A relationship is different from being in love. When you’re in a relationship something focuses . . . something stabilizes. You become infatuated heart and soul, and despite desire, it’s all still there, you find devotion.

Spelling will get easier.

Don’t worry so much about discipline - you will get more in time. Don’t worry but keep trying. You worried so much, little Pan, that you would never be able to focus, to train your body into the body of a warrior. Stop worrying. Keep trying. Your habits will shape you. All those days of playing with a sword, then practicing spinning one for a summer have made huge forearms. Belly dancing every week gave you muscle control, ballet gave you grace. Keep with things. They’re hard at first - don’t worry that you can’t do ten push ups - do one. Do one as often as you can.

I would tell myself - you have been afraid of overstepping your bounds many more times than you have overstepped them. You have survived every time you have. Be assertive. Say hello. Never hesitate to offer to eat with someone.

Bees only ever go to the same kinds of flowers because their little bee brains can only hold one or two flower patterns in their mind at once. It took me till I was seventeen and in college to figure that one out. Now you know.

Time changes, or rather, you ability to perceive time changes. You are still here, still now. Time may move quickly or slowly - but the past that was once an interminably long period, the events of the day a vast list, compresses. You learn how to some up those hundred events into “we went to the park” - you will begin to keep highlights rather than the entirety. 

Yes - you will bloom. You will have girlfriends. Don’t sweat it.

Would I warn myself? I don’t think I would. You will do many stupid things, and you will live parts of your life in shame and regret and anger. You will learn a lot from those things - and you will learn it in a way that you cannot simply by my telling. You will learn to be moral. You will learn that sometimes people are the way they are for a reason. You will learn that you don’t need to lie. You will learn that you are far from perfect. You will learn that neither are others. You will learn when to be kind, and when to have boundaries. You will learn how to fail, how to apologize, how to make the same mistakes again. You will learn that sometime criticism is important, and sometimes you really don’t need to wear what others have projected on you. 

Don’t worry, you will learn.

The most important thing I would tell myself in dealing with guilt - is that guilt is not a solution. It’s a message telling you something should change. You will sometimes feel that guilt is the coin by which you pay off your crimes. Don’t keep paying off your crimes. Stop having crimes. Never stay in any situation you feel guilty about.

I’m sure there’s more - I’ll add it later, but most of all past me - know that you were blessed. That you had the best childhood anyone could ask for. Know that whatever hardships you come across, whatever questions may haunt you now, this too shall pass. Know that despite it all, at least when you were twenty - you were proud to be you.