A Letter to my Teen Sisters
To my teen sisters,
As the living situations around us continue to change the same thoughts keep going through my mind. What if we grow distant? What if we lose the amazing bond and friendship we share?
Now that school is cancelled I won’t see you every day, we won’t have our time together to chat on the bus in, we can’t sit together in Maths and laugh at the teacher, we can’t hang out with all the girls at recess and lunch to discuss the latest goss and we can’t get ready to go to the party together on the weekend.
It’s times like this that I realise more than ever how much your friendship means to me and how at times I took it for granted. So I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to tell you some things I want you to know right now.
I’m always here for you no matter what. Although we can’t physically be together that doesn’t mean I can’t support you and be there for you like I always am, we just need to get creative, find new ways to connect. How lucky we are that it’s 2020 and we have endless ways to do that. I’m here if you wake up anxious and need to chat over the phone, I’m here if you wake up sad and need a laugh over FaceTime with a silly face filter, I’m here if you need a distraction and want to play trivia on House Party and I’m here if you just need a good old goss sesh in a group chat with the rest of the girls.
I’m scared too - We only have to open Insta, Facebook or even TikTok now to see that the world is in a crisis. It continues to change our daily lives in ways that we have no control over and at times it’s overwhelming, it’s intimidating and I want you to know that I’m scared too! So, let’s be open and honest with each other about how we are feeling, what we’re thinking because chances are we are both feeling the same way!
Continue to find the good in every day - gratitude is something we should be practising every day but in a time of crisis it’s more important than ever. It’s easy and almost natural for us to slip into a negative mindset, looking and focusing on all we don’t have and can’t do but this doesn’t help the current situation and more so our mental health. If we can find even just one thing each day to be grateful for, we could share that one little thing with each other. It might hard right now, but I know it will get easier if we do it together.
This too shall pass – remember that time when I tripped over at school and it was all everyone could talk about for weeks? Remember when you failed that test and you thought the world was going to end? In both of those times, and so many others, it feels like we will never be able to move past that moment. But we did. And it’s the same with this situation right now. One day we will look back and remember this strange time, we will laugh and talk about how we talked for hours on facetime, or binge-watched an entire season of a show on Netflix in one day, or made up the most amazing choreographed routines on TikTok. This too shall pass, and it will just be another chapter in our story.
Be kind to yourself at this time – sometimes it’s hard to even get out of bed right now. I have times where I don’t want to wash my hair or eat my lunch. But we have to be kind to ourselves at this time. Be kind to our minds and our bodies. We have to make sure we are doing something at least once a day that brings us joy and happiness. Listening to some of our favourite music, doing a facemask, painting and re-painting my nails, reading and even yoga – these are some of the things I’ve been doing lately that make me smile. We could do some of these things together over Facetime, or I could help you think of things that I think would bring you joy. But it’s more important now than ever, to speak kindly to ourselves, and do things that make us smile.
t's not that I never thought these things about you and our friendship, it’s just that I never said them to you. But this current situation has made me realise we shouldn’t wait to tell people we love them, how much they mean to us or that we are always there for them, so from now on, I promise to tell you these things just because; and not wait for a reason why.
xoxo
Love from your fellow teen sister
Written by Kritz Sciessere from The Big Sister Experience.