A Letter From My 15-Year-Old Self

When my parents tore apart their home in search of some misplaced pesos, they found a letter. The envelope read:

To Be Opened By Hannah Bauer ONLY on 01/22/2021

Though I had half a mind to tell my mom to just throw it out, I had her to send it on, figuring three years later was better than never. In hindsight, I wish she’d trashed it, because despite being a person of very little shame, the embarrassment I felt reading it was enough to make me consider abandoning society and living alone amongst the wolves for the rest of my life.

John Mulaney has a very funny part of his standup where he reads from an interview he gave to GQ while coked up out of his mind. The letter from my 15-year-old self is giving a similar vibe, minus the coke. 

Dated January 22, 2008, the letter begins:

Dear Hannah, The whole point of this letter is to remind me of the person I—that you—were 13 years ago. 

Yes, and at what cost?

I bet you’re already bemoaning what a little dipshit you were.

“Bemoaning” is too gentle a word for it. My suffering continues, as does the letter.

Right now I’m listening to the August Rush soundtrack on my little black MP3 player.

Throughout, I kept note of when the song changed:

Now I’m listening to Jimmy Eat World “Let It Happen.” Love this song.

Ooh, here’s Fall Out Boy. I can’t pick which lyrics to write, they’re all good.

I was pretty Into Music in those days. My greatest hope for my future was…to see Cobra Starship? 

Self: How many concerts have you gone to? Please, say you’ve seen The Hush Sound. Or Muse, or Cobra Starship or Bright Eyes or fuck, anything, just pleasepleaseplease no country. Do not be getting old, please. 

Apparently, as a teenager I correlated liking country music to aging. Update for 15-year-old Hannah: I fucking love getting old, and I still don’t care for country music. (Except John Prine, and a few selected works of Shania Twain.)

A few times, I found it necessary to mention my attraction to Ewan McGregor and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. (At least one of them is aging well.) I did not linger on this topic, but I did not mince words. One of the words I did not mince is “bone.” I want to cease existing. 

Early on in the letter, I made a point to guard against the possibility that future Hannah, already decrepit as a 29-year-old in 2021, has already succumbed to the throes of dementia:

If you’ve somehow gotten better at math, or still have an amazing memory, you’ll know I’m 15 and a freshman. I’ve my amazing red hair—and I hope you still feel the same way!

I do not feel the same way. When I was 15, I went into the local salon for blonde highlights in my dusty brown hair, and the stylist fucked up terribly and I ended up with Hayley Williams red hair. Luckily for that woman, I loved Paramore and thought the red hair was awesome. It was…just not on me.

I worte a bit about people I was in classes with but have little to no memory of. I write that I love art. Not just the subject, but the people in it. Regrettably, I can barely recall that most of the people named existed. 

But I wasn’t all-in on school: I deeply don’t want to go to science. I have a massive hate-on for that class. 

Right now I have a massive “hate-on” for myself.

The one indication that I was not exclusively focused on my inner life: Mom’s stressing today over her jury trial. I hope it goes well.

Still, how could the weight of carrying out justice compare with what I had going on?

But shit, I continued immediately after, I’m stressing too. Things are so busy.

Yeah. Things. I spent some time at the end of letter hyping myself up so that I could bear the burden of these things:

Be proud, chickie. (What is “chickie”?! Why are we doing “chickie”?!) Because you’re fucking awesome. You’re so strong. 

Let it not be said that Hannah Bauer did not exhibit signs of delusional confidence at a young age!

In the middle of the two-page missive, I posed a question to my future self:

Do you still write? Keep at it. Please.

Well. Okay.