What advice would you give to your teenage self?
Advice to Teenage Me:
An honest and vulnerable letter from a trans man to the teenager he used to be, about identity, self-care, love, family, and the minimal amount of time we have to share made brutally clear.
What I Wish I Had Known:
Dear Axton (Yes, that’s your legal name now.),
Hey. It’s me. You, actually, just older, a lot older, a little more worn in, and carrying a whole lot more than most people expect from me.
I do not want to sugarcoat this, I see no point in beating around the bush. Some of what’s coming is going to wreck you, and I am sorry for that. Most of this though is going to save you wasted time, from a lot of pain, and from you. The best parts of this you couldn’t have scripted if you tried. So buckle up, you’re in for one hell of a wild ride.
Be You: Unapologetically:
You spend way too much time perfecting versions of yourself for other people. Trying on identities that don’t quite fit, chasing labels that feel close but never quite right, and looking for just one thing that resonates with you. I know how exhausting that is. I know how lonely it gets, when you can’t explain yourself even to yourself. When you don’t know anyone else who looks anything like you on the inside; how do you even begin to find where you fit?
Here’s what I need you to hear:
Bro Axton, you are a man. A transgender man. That is so completely, one hundred percent okay, more than that actually it’s perfect and it fits you finally.
Listen here kid you are not broken, so don’t listen to anyone who says shit else. You are not even close to being confused. You’re not going through a phase. The discomfort you feel in your own skin has a name, and more importantly there is a way through it to sunny days. The version of you that exists on the other side of that truth is more open, more free, more you than you ever have been, and more at home in his own life. I know it’s probably hard for you to imagine right now, but I promise it’s true.
Stop apologizing for taking up space. Do not continue making yourself smaller so others feel comfortable. Be you loudly, quietly, however you need to, but be you.
Give Yourself Grace, Time, and Respect
You are going to make mistakes, all people do. And you are going to have seasons where you don’t recognize yourself, where you act out of pain instead of intention, or where you look back and cringe. That’s all a part of it. It is called being human.
I need you to stop being so brutal to yourself about it though. The way you talk to yourself sometimes, you wouldn’t let anyone else speak to you that way. Start holding yourself to that same standard. Be accountable, especially to you.
Give yourself time. Not every answer is available to you at seventeen, twenty, or even thirty. You only gain the knowledge of what to do in some situations after you’ve lived enough to understand. That’s not failure. That’s process, and lived experience.
Respect yourself the way you’ll one day learn to. The sooner you start, the better.
Axton Smoking a Ciggy.
Self-Care is Not Optional it’s Foundational-
I know self-care sounds like a buzzword. I know you roll your eyes at it. But listen: your body, your mind, your soul, and your creativity are the tools you do everything with. If you don’t take care of them, everything else suffers, including you.
Hike more.
Write more.
Create more.
Love more.
Laugh more… genuinely, loud, without calculating whether it makes you look like a tool.
These are not distractions from your real life. This is living. This is life. Chase it like it matters, because it does.
Family is Everything: Show Up until You Cannot
I know things at home are complicated. I know it’s not always easy. But family. You know the people who are in it with you, imperfect, present, and always there. They matter more than you’re giving them credit for right now, and soon enough you will miss this.
Be there.
Show up.
Put the phone or
video game down
& be in the room.
And your sister, you know which one, I need you to pay close attention here. Be there for her, especially in the hard seasons that are coming. She is going to need her big brother, and you will hate yourself if you don’t shown up, and save her.
Love Your Mom. Take Every Minute You Get.
I’m going to be honest with you about something, and I need you to really hear it.
You lose her, and neither of you is very old when the it happens.
Mom, your person, your best friend, your creative sounding board, the only one who ever just got you without explanation, she has to leave a week before you turn 30. She’s 50 years young . She is gone. Nothing prepares you for it. Nothing.
So please. Call her back, text her back, reply to her dumb memes. Stay on the phone the extra hour. Say yes to the plans. Tell her what she means to you while the words can still reach her. Memorize the sound of her laugh and the beat of her heart. Let her be proud of you out loud, squeeze her longer, and make her laugh.
You cannot get those moments back. You will want every single one of them.
Don’t Waste Time on the Wrong Love:
There are going to be people who you think feel almost right, until they show you their true colors. Relationships that teach you something but cost you more than they should. I’m not going to tell you to skip them entirely, they shape you.
But don’t linger where you shouldn’t. Don’t mistake familiarity for love or intensity for connection. Don’t let them put their hands on you.
Here is the thing: the right one shows up. Right before the hardest season of your life, just a few weeks before you lose your mom, Kelso walks in. They are the reason you are still standing. They are the one.
Trust the timing, even when it makes no sense. Especially then.
The Life Waiting for You Is Worth It
I know you’re tired. I feel it when you’re confused. I understand that some days the weight of not knowing who you are or where you belong feels like it might actually break you.
It doesn’t.
You come out the other side of all of it. You figure out the way you identify, the grief, the love, the loss, and you are still here. You don’t ever think about not creating. And you are always becoming more.
Do not FORGET:
Hike more.
Write more.
Create more.
Love more.
Laugh more.
And call your mom,
EVERY TIME YOU THINK OF IT.
Love you always,
Axton
Your Turn
If you could give teenage you one short memo, what would you say? Drop it in the comments & share it with a friend who you think will resonates with it.
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