Sage Advice from a Sister to Her Siblings

I know a super smart young woman who had to write a monologue for an acting class. She wrote it as a letter to her siblings in hopes that they will learn to never dim their lights, to not change to please others, to not accept being treated poorly in the name of "love" and that it's never to late to take back the narrative of their own stories!

Here is what she wrote!

To my youngest sister, when I was your age, everything seemed to change. I had just become friends with a new group of girls and I was struggling to find my place. These were the cool girls, who talked on the phone with boys instead of just daydreaming about them. They liked to talk about rated R movies that I wasn’t allowed to watch, and I liked to talk about the pioneers and the books I was reading. One girl, Cynthia, always seemed bored with me, until one day she decided I was gullible and found it hilarious. I felt like I had finally done something right so for months, I dumbed myself down for her approval. Midway through 5th grade, I was snapped out of it. Our brother was born with a chromosomal disorder. Everything felt heavy. I began to notice little eyes on me, watching me mourn and watching me dim my light around my friends. A year later, you were born and we moved away from those friends. I was determined to shake the dumb blonde image. It wasn’t too hard as I had always been at the top of my class, despite the gullible charade. I became once more the Hermione I had been and it wasn’t long before kids started calling me stuck-up. I tried to be more outwardly friendly and made some friends whom I really enjoyed.

A few years later, and I was your age, youngest brother. Freshman year, my friend group was drifting. Some of them made fun of me when I did a Julius Caesar monologue in English class and took it seriously. Some of them called me Medusa because I was, in their words, mean and ugly. I felt like I was being rejected for being myself and not being good enough.

To my brother in the middle, two years later when I was your age, I had my first serious boyfriend. I thought I had finally found someone who really liked me for me, but it wasn’t long before he wanted me to quit theater. He was condescending to me and made fun of me the way I pronounced things. He told me I was a people pleaser and should stop being nice to people. He told his best friend I was an investment because I’d grow into my looks and would be attractive… some day. I stayed in that relationship for two years because I was scared that it was the most anyone could love me.

My problem with all this is less the insults themselves then the fact that people felt comfortable telling me these things. To my sister that came right after me, I am so proud of you for becoming the hero in your story, but when you ditch the victim role, people assume that you can "take it" when someone calls you names. That it's okay to tell you that someone calls you Medusa. A few years ago in acting school when I was going through a bout of seasonal depression and a classmate said, “Wow, you’ve really mellowed out. It’s so great to see, you were so high-strung last semester.”

There will always be people hoping you will fail, hoping you will dim your light. It’s still a struggle for me to not desperately want to impress others, to prove that I’m worthy. I want you all to remember you are good enough, exactly as you are, and I love you fiercely. You’ve been a lighthouse to me, to be true to myself for the little eyes that are watching.