Dear 16 year old Grace,
Today you would have woken up feeling disappointed that you could open your eyes. That you’re still breathing, well alive and staring at the blank ceiling for ages. The world at this point to your young eyes is a cold and weary place - everything is monochromatic. Your later memories will confirm this. You will contemplate faking period cramps again so you don’t have to go to school. Dad will be too embarrassed to ask about specifics but then again, he knows enough biology to figure that it is no reasonable weekly phenomenon. The only consolation will be to seek refuge in the art room after class. The lovely Mr Foo who was always radiating kindness and understood your need to be left alone, either to work on your super emo Emily The Strange influenced o level artwork, to read or to nap on the bench. In this space you painted, created but also erased most of your memories of being alive at 16.
Now you’re always telling yourself that you’re not the only kid who loses their mother to cancer in secondary school and after crying about it a lot, you got to move on. You got to tackle teenage struggles of insecurity, building, keeping and losing friendships, crushes on the opposite and same sex, saving up and losing Nokia handphones, begging to stay out late, scoring fake IDs for Zouk and 3/100 for A Math (you will drop the dreadful subject). Your 16 year old world is self-absorbed, chaotic and rule-breaking. Like your 14th, 15th, 18th, 19th year on earth, it goes by in muddled haste. You are lost and you don’t want to be found.
You also fervently believe the world is completely unfair and devoured literature, both fiction and non-fiction, that reinforces your understanding of the haves and have-nots. Those who have mothers and those who don’t. Those who live in mansions and those who live below the poverty line. At 16, To Kill A Mockingbird changed everything. Culturalised prejudice, institutionalized inequality, non-conformist courage and righteous tenacity penetrated your consciousness. You remember that’s when the fire for social justice started burning. A part of you is always dreaming and fighting for the things you want. You have a destination in mind despite the self-deprivation and denial of hope. You haven’t figured out how to get to where you want to go and that’s okay. That fire still burns today and if we meet, you would see that it all totally makes sense.
You will see that I have discovered the joyous labour of teaching, the magic of making socially-driven theatre and through my journey I found my tribe of creative freedom fighters. You will innovate and slog your guts to keep the protest artist dream alive. You will cultivate and build personal relationships that are so supportive and mutually inspiring, you will never ever settle for less. You will still run your mouth, mess up, hurt, cry and work towards healing.
When I turned 30, alone in London because I had to be in the theatre, I started to reflect and question what “Grace” really means... and so I leave you with a beloved quote by Hermann Hesse, from the book Siddharta.
“I have had to experience so much stupidity, so many vices, so much error, so much nausea, disillusionment and sorrow, just in order to become a child again and begin anew. I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace.”
Hang on to the grace and grit in your life and you will be just fine.
With all my love,
34 year old Grace x
