Beta read this?

I’d love to hear what you think about the following letter – does it strike the right note? Is it too revealing, somehow? Too much information? I would love your feedback. The letter will run on Dear Teen Me.

Dear teenage me,

Emmy! Yes, you, with the girl-pompadour! Oh man, how I wish this letter could travel back in time, get printed out and handed to you at High School graduation, along with your diploma!

Nobody likes big sweeping advice, so I’m not going to load you up with it. But here are a few moments that you might try differently.

When you are 18, starting college:

You will make out with a guy named Joe for no reason other than you two are hanging out in his room and there’s a lull in the conversation and you get nervous. Don’t do that. Just get up and say you need to go study or something.

Don’t fool around with guys because you run out of things to say, for Pete’s sake. Getting physical with someone is spiritual and important. The sexual revolution was about rights. You have the right to do with your body what you wish – but be smart about it! Protect yourself from superflous, meaningless physical contact. It drains your self-respect and weakens your boundaries.

When you are 19, in the summer:

You will be riding in the back of the car owned by the father of your host family in Ecuador, a college professor. He will turn to his brother, who’s in the front seat, and tell him that you are as dumb as a rock. You will understand him because in the six weeks you’ve been living in his crappy little house, you will have learned to speak Spanish.

Instead of crying silently while you look out the window, try speaking up. In English. Tell him that you think he’s a pig and that any man who treats women the way he does is no educated man.

Then go stay in a hotel for the rest of your trip. Your parents will be happy to pay the bill (and it will only cost 5 dollars a day, due to the wretched Ecuadorian economy).

When you are 20, working the Olympics:

You will be exhausted, working 18-hour days for 22 days straight. You will be a PA, the lowest person on the totem pole. You’ll be wearing a vintage bowling shirt with “Bill” on the lapel. You’ll walk a stack of tapes into an edit bay and a dickwad (whose name you will forget – dang) will take the tapes from you and say, “Poor Bill” and hug you. He’ll press his groin into you, groping your behind. Emmy, this is called sexual harassment, but in 1992, it’s not yet being talked about publically.

You could sue him, but that’s not really your style. How about this? Lift your foot and stamp hard down the length of his shin, skinning it. Then curse him. Then quit. Wait, you know what…

When you are 20, don’t take that job at the Olympics.

Not only will you face sexual harassment, you’ll only get paid $100 a day, and be charged $100 a day for housing.

When you are 21, in the winter:

A work colleague will give your mother a 20 pound box of chocolate truffles from the super-fancy Lilac chocolatier. You will find yourself unable to stop binging on them. You will swipe handfuls when you think no one is looking. You will wake up in the night to eat them. You will stash some in your room when you see the supply is running low. In reaction to the fear you feel at finding yourself so out of control, you’ll go on your first diet. The Atkins Diet. From here on for the next 20 years you will fight your sugar addiction. You will diet and lose and gain weight countless times, with a growing sense of failure and shame. It’s the journey you’ve taken, and I almost don’t even want to warn you about it, because so much of what you learn and who you are comes from the struggle but… instead of picking up Atkins, maybe, maybe you could just pick up a wonderful and weird little book called Potatoes Not Prosac instead. It’s the only book that will ever help you get relief from your sugar addiction. You’ll probably still be as interesting a person if you skip the some of suffering. Probably.

And here’s the lightening round. Just a few things I’d like you to know:

• When you’re made pitch of the collegiate acapella group, the Night Owls, learn, ahem, to read sheet music. Don’t just try to arrange by ear.

• When a guy named Greg Podunovich stares at you too intently on your first few dates, don’t make him feel like a dork. He’s just really into you.

• When you get married to Greg in 2002, be sure to take a photograph with you and Grandma Dorothy. Somehow, the photographer missed it.

• When you are cleaning out your computer files in 2005, do not erase anything with the suffix .AVI. You are accidentally erasing your daughter Ellie’s baby movies!

• And your son Rex is allergic to milk! It’s why he has colic and why he gets those strange, drifting rashes on his sweet baby body.

• When you first meet authors Leigh Bardugo, Anna Banks, Jessica Brody, Jennifer Bosworth and Marissa Meyer at a painfully awkward dinner, don’t despair. You’re eating with future dear friends.

Emmy, I give you these bits of advice, knowing that you’re going to make mistakes no matter what. You’ll suffer. You’ll learn. You’ll love and be loved.

Your wonderful parents are going to support you so ridiculously much. You’ll find an astounding man to partner up with (the aforementioned Greg) – and he’s going to heal your heart from all those (aforementioned) mistakes. You’ll get to be both an actor and a writer – your two great passions. You’ll have a boy and a girl and they’re going to kick you ass and break you open into your best self.

God will protect you from the worst of your mistakes, which I didn’t even list here, for the sake of privacy. Privacy! That’s something you’ll come to value!

Love to you, Emmy Laybourne! Love and blessings! Just watch it on those truffles.