Signing My Babysitter’s High School Graduation Card
Time is a very fast and slippery slope. It’s a race car. You’re just 14 years old in the world and then all at once you’re 18 and super involved with bills and stress and the undoing of others all around you, like a river that wets your feet over and over. Insurance and FICA and fucking credit card bills and how do I change a tire? And people will die like you never thought possible, the good ones, your ones.
So please try and act as stupid and brave as you can right now. Please do everything and anything for love. Ruin your reputation like Rumi said. Slash through hearts. Burn a mean fire. There is plenty, and I mean plenty of time to worry later. It’s what you mostly will do in your bed at night when you’re older, alone or tangled up with someone else. You’ll just worry. Worry like it’s a part of you, like a limp you have or something. A bushy eyebrow. Long fingers. Worry like that.
And try and not skip your classes. I know. I know. I know. Just get better at scheduling your classes later in the day. Meet your professors and make friends everywhere. Learn how to cook; your future self will love you. Be spontaneous. There will be a time where you can no longer move from point A to point B unencumbered and unrushed. Move through the world with ease. It’s okay to get lost or feel lost. All-nighters are never a good idea really.
And some people will want you to fall in love with them. “Tell me everything about you, you interesting and devastatingly beautiful human.” They will say. And they can take you all the way down where you are all the way apart, and I mean dismantled and shaking and burning like Springsteen, and speaking in tongues maybe. And people can say everything you’ve always wanted to hear. Song lyrics. What they loved as a child. How they imagine the future. The novels they’ve read. Things no one else has ever said. And you are like, this person, this person is like me. Found em.
Baby let’s be reckless they say. OK and you are all like, I will stand in the middle of the street and kiss you. Here let me take my shirt off. You wanna dance? And people will bring out the best in you. Light up your heart like a garbage can fire, like you have not ever been so bright. People see you from a town over. Alive and light.
And people will put their finger in your mouth and tell you they have been waiting for you since they first might have believed in love. And people will miss you like you are an amputated arm. Or someone who died. Or their youth.
And then when you love them back, all splayed out and vulnerable, all thick with love like a honey bee buzz, they will change their mind about you. And this will be particularly shitty. This will feel like you are dead for a little bit. But you will not die from love, not really. You will have two choices in the ether of that place: to armor up and be a terribly hardened and sad woman for an undetermined amount of time, or you can stay open to the possibility of life. You can remember that I am telling you this, that you will do that to someone else too, you fucking heartbreaker. Someone will change your name in their phone contacts to heartbutcher for a few months before they delete it. Yep.
Because I didn’t tell you about that yet—the possibility of anything and everything happening, and that you have no idea the things you are capable of doing. The things you will do and won’t do. You will fluctuate between bad and good for the rest of your life. Bad. I mean you will do bad things. And you will do the most glorious things too.
And baby, you should not ever wear a bra. Never. Because there will be a day in the future that you feel like you should, all aware of what society thinks you should look like. And let’s talk about your body. It’s perfect right now and it will stay perfect for you. It’s your fucking house, your church, your stable, your hideaway. Get in relationship with it as soon as possible. Treat it like you would a sister, a friend you love. Tell it good things, true things. Be there for it. Say “I love you areolas. I love you belly, all soft and mine and truly quite beautiful. I love you ass, you are majestic. I want to slap you with love. I love you thigh, arm, nose, neck. I love you, because you’re going to show me the world.” Yeah, that.
And you can always get more money. That’s another thing. It’s kind of a joke really, the way adults let it run their little lives. But you, what you can’t get back is time like I said before, it is real fast like a race. And the people you love, the ones that matter, spend time with them. Ask them their stories. Be open to what they can give you. Sit at their feet.
And always buy art and collect something, because it’s fun and makes you interesting. And read poetry. Memorize a poem. Because someday you’ll surely be somewhere very romantic, like a Greek isle, maybe Spain, or a dive bar in Tulsa and you’ll be with someone, and you can recite it to them. This is a very sexy thing that may happen.
And I have more for you. Always more. Probably things about how to figure out what you should do with your life. The best sexual positions for female orgasm. How to get people to do what you want. Cooking things. What to do when you are blue. Things like that. I always have more for you. Always come home and visit us. And I hope you keep this with you when you go. And I hope you know how much I love you.
About the Author
Amy Turn Sharp is a mom of three boys, an avid reader, traveler, creative director, and the owner of Secret Studio, a recording studio and art gallery in Franklinton. She hosts poetry and songwriting workshops, both in person and virtually, for people around the world. Her writing is for the brokenhearted, the joyful, and the weirdos of the future. Amy believes we all need reminders of life’s little truths—the words that connect us, turn us on, and tune us in. She invites you to raise your hand if you want a poem.
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