If you're in a place, #23: A Note to My 9th Graders

#23: A Note to My 9th Graders

Kids,

I remember the years when I was most frustrated with my mother. I was about fifteen or sixteen years old. We fought constantly.

For most of my childhood, I was a model kid. I got good grades. I behaved well. I did the things a parent would hope their kid would do. And then, when I got to high school, I found myself struggling for the first time. The numbers, or lack thereof, in Algebra didn’t make sense. I struggled to focus when I’d sit and read a book. I couldn’t remember all of the names of things or their functions in Biology class.

And so I’d ditch class. Or I’d fall asleep in class. Or I’d get kicked out of class for making too many snide comments at the teacher or for talking to my friends too much. I’d run home each day so I could intercept the phone call from the automated system that said, “Your student Timothy Gomez was marked absent from school today.” I’d pick up the phone and hang it up.

I thought my mother didn’t get it. The truth is, I didn’t get it. I didn’t get that the reason I was acting out so much was because I was frustrated. It was because, for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel smart. For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel special. I didn’t understand that the reason I was acting out was because I had trauma rooted deep inside of me from watching my dad fall apart my whole childhood due to a drug I didn’t fully understand. I didn’t understand that I was acting out because I was struggling to make connections that felt authentic. I was struggling to be seen fully.

And my mother didn’t know how to navigate all of this. She had raised two kids long before but in much different circumstances. When she raised my brother and sister, she had a partner then, one not yet fully lost to chemicals, who shared in the raising of their children. She was younger. Had more energy. Was less tired when she’d come home from work.

But then, a full fifteen years since the last time she had a fifteen-year-old, she’d work 10-hour days, on her feet, in high heels and a freshly pressed pant suit. She’d come home to cook a meal, exhausted, something fast so she could clean up and get off her feet as fast as possible.

And here I was, a teenage hurricane. Flailing my arms for attention and snapping at her anytime she tried to give me some.

Why am I telling you all of this right now? At this moment?

I want to remind you that we are all floating in all of this madness. And we are all trying to grab onto something stable. We are all trying to find an anchor in these breaking waters. It’s hard. And it’s scary. And it’s frustrating. And it feels lonely.

It’s a tough time right now. None of us have ever experienced something quite like this. There is no roadmap. No rule book. You might find yourself frustrated, annoyed, angry with your parents one day. Then you might be fine the next day. You might find your parents are irritable one day, tired, bothered, scared. Fine the next.

I assure, though, they are trying. And so are you. We all are.

I wish I could inject into sixteen-year-old me a better sense of empathy for my mother. But I also wish I could inject into myself a better sense of empathy for myself. I wish I was more curious about my feelings and my behaviors. I wish I asked for help more. I wish I stopped and took more breaths before saying things or behaving in certain ways. I wish I asked myself why? more.

But I did the best I could with what I had at the time. I didn’t have the tools then. I didn’t know what I know now. I didn’t have the experiences to carve off some of those edges. And I’ve tried as much as I can to get better in the twenty years since those days, now that I have better information and better tools.

And you are doing your best right now as well. You always are. But especially during these tough times.

Trust yourself. Trust the people you love. Always ask for help when you need it. Always reflect.

We are all in this together.

I miss you all dearly,

Gomez.