It was 70 degrees in mid October and very few leaves had even changed because of the warm North Carolina fall. As I looked around the table I found myself wanting permission to stare longer at each of their faces. Even though they may say the wrinkles and dark under eyes are unbecoming I found the age in their faces powerful and lovely. I’d known these women since I was 15 years old; A lot more life has been had since we were last together.

I returned to my high school hometown of Greensboro, NC to attend my 20th high school reunion. Mostly i returned to sit with a few faces and know them again even if only for 48 hours to allow the nostalgia to seep into our older frames. Events I had stored in all parts of my brain and body from those formative years were bubbling up the instant I sat down with these women. Towards the end of our meal and after many other questions, i asked, “Do you have peace with your 16 year old self?” The answer in full is much longer than our lunchtime date but I so appreciated what they had to say. For the rest of the weekend I found a way to ask something like that to other classmates i was spending time with and found that by Saturday afternoon hours before the actual reunion party, I was wondering this for myself.

After all the festivities ended, I boarded the plane back to the West Coast and I realized there is so much I wish to say to my 15,16,17,18 year old self. So here goes one effort of peacemaking with her:

Dear girl, Do not be so afraid but in your curiosity be as kind and protective of yourself as a young girl can possibly be. There is much to figure out about the world, so don’t rush and don’t push it away and don’t jump in both feet without a clue what it looks like on the other side. Be kindly curious. Be patient to know that the world will teach you so much in time for now you are continuing to learn yourself and others. Finding your own self is a much darker, awkward and deeper journey than maybe anyone let you know. Yes, you are beautifully wonderfully made in Gods image as your parents told you many times, and you are also still young and human in a world with many many people and ideas - many of which have great appeal but will not always serve you. And with all that advice then I would say this:

You were lovely even still. And I want to greet your young face with kisses on both cheeks. I want to hold you close and bring comfort and grace to all the days you disconnected further and further from yourself. First as you came to know that all the verses in the world couldn’t always hold the desire in your body to be known and seen and loved. That trusting a God to be your everything in those growing up days was hard when the world felt so wide open. You feel you fell so far from His love and path for you that you weren’t still worthy to be held and deserving of His mercy. Actually I see now part of the splitting was the real learning of how much you needed someone bigger than yourself, a real hope outside of that wide opened full optioned world that gave such fleeting tastes of love and acceptance. In receiving that mercy maybe you will learn something of the real kindness to yourself. Its not the kindness that is ignorant and glossing over but the kind that sees and still offers love. You dear girl have always been worthy of love, and not because you made all the right choices. Im sorry for the many years that truth felt so shaky.

i am sorry for the war on your body as a young girl. the barrage of messages that quickly and insidiously communicate to you the one path to beauty. With each message you received you got further and further away from your own body and began labeling each part with new names with a lot less acceptance. By the time you left high school you actually were so disconnected from your own body after so many harsh and untrue labels that a mirror became pointless. You could not even see the reflection. i want to hold the body that spent hours hugging a toilet to release the enemy of food. Rather than nourishment or joy, hunger for food felt like betrayal to yourself and the wicked force to keep you from being what you desperately need to be, thin in a disappearing kind of way. and also in an appearing way - a way in which you could be noticed and wanted. I’m sorry you felt shame for that desire that is built into your person. I'm sorry that friends held your hair instead of told you you were already beautiful - no real fault of theirs, they were so busy figuring it all out too, we could hardly rescue each other.

I see you now. more clearly. and you were fighting so many battles in your days. and somedays you fought valiantly with the protection of angels. and other days looked more like lying down in surrender. and i want so badly to say to you now, no more regretting those years of split turns, they now are a part of your wisdom. Don’t hate the 16 year old you, she was trying so very hard to navigate the world. It was beautiful and awkward and fun and full of discovery and stupid and dangerous and big hearted.

You were still very you in a navigating a crazy maze but those days offer shape to the women you are today. The woman who entered the 20th year reunion confidently with all the turns of the past that her mind body and soul are rich today. not perfect, not all figured out, but down the road a bit further. a lot more life has been had yes, there are gray hairs and lines to prove it. However, there has also been kindness to self that has radicalized your days to more fully live into what you hope to offer the world.

I’m not sure I could be this 38 without that 16. Maybe, but I’m done being mad at her. Peace to you young girl.