Dear Sixth-Grade-Betsy,

Tonight I went searching for a business envelope and found you instead; one page front and back of your bubbly cursive from 11 years ago. Another 11 years and nine inches have passed and its time I get back to you. To answer your question, OJ was found not guilty. Some teachers let us watch TV in class when the verdict was read. During passing period, we ran up and down the red brick path at school spreading the news. We wrote, “The juice is loose” on every white board in the science building. The smell of roses will forever remind you of the OJ trial because right when it was in the thick of things, a porcelain bottle of rose water in Mom’s bathroom fell off the counter and shattered. The scent of roses wafted through the house for days. You spent a lot of Friday nights watching TGIF perched on the corner of Mom’s bed, while the others watched Unsolved Mysteries in the family room. That show scared you. A lot of things scared you over the next few years. And yet, even with your fears, you continued to hide in Jake’s room in the dark and whisper to him. When he sucked in a gasp of air, body tense, and eyes wide, you laughed and laughed. It was never funny, but you wouldn’t figure that out for a few more years.

You went on to learn that friendship was much more than you ever expected. I remember when that was an original thought in your mind. Through high school, college, and work the one constant was friends as a close as famliy. Last year, you moved to China, and after the culture shock wore off, you felt something missing. Something really big. Finally you put your finger on it: friends. You are different without your friends. Kind of boring, and you annoy Josh a lot. You know that now, but you can’t stop. At this age, you know lots of things you should change about yourself, but somehow the current is too strong to fight, and you have resigned to letting time smooth you out.

Along with your letter, I found your transcripts and had a sinking reminder that you were a solid B student. And with the grades were comments. I had forgotten about the pages of thoughtful comments that came with the grades and was struck by the memory of how hard all your teachers worked, how evident it was that they were willing to meet you and others half way or more. You could have gotten more from all their hard work, I think. A’s probably would have taken you on a different path. Maybe not to New Zealand, though its impossible to say. I’d like to think that A’s or F’s, New Zealand was your destiny somehow; the ultimate adventure passed onto you from your Mom along with her spirit.


Some years after Space Camp, you stopped pursuing that whole astronaut thing. I was relieved to see in writing that you wanted to be an astronaut or a teacher because you have come back to the teacher idea, but sometimes you aren’t so sure. You’ve been looking for this so-called “passion”. You can’t “find it” and you have come to believe it must be the most precious commodity on earth. Finally, instead of tying yourself in knots about passion, you have decided to settle for something you like, and that happened to be teaching. That’s what you are doing now. Last year, you did it too. Its fun, but its harder than you thought. I am not certain, but I have a hunch that most of all you are passionate about travel and adventure---and you are drawn to the idea of those three months of summer vacation wide open for adventure with family and friends and one day your kids.

You remind me of how uncomplicated life can be. Most of your favorites are the same: dogs, blue and chocolate. Spaghetti and Entertainment Tonight got lost somewhere along the way. Soccer has also become a stranger, but you’d have it back in an instant if you could. The setting is all wrong here.

Has Jake told you yet that “we are all our own person”? He was really marveled at that idea back in the early days at Macallan Road. Those words would form in his mouth and his eyes revealed that his whole paradigm had shifted. He said we lived “in our own worlds”, his ‘Jake’ and mine ‘Betsy’, and that we had control over our own actions and feelings. You would go on to hear that a hundred more times from other sources, but when you finally got it, you thought of Jake and how he wantd to share it with you years back.
It hasn’t always felt that way---the control---and there have been times when you have wanted to deny that it is true, but he is right. It’s a neat thought, and if you can wrap your head around it, you suddenly feel like you’ve been given the most valuable and fragile gift.

I don’t remember what you expected, but things have turned out well. Your story is a happy one. You didn’t win lots of awards “like Jenny Burney”, but you will continue to tell anyone who will listen about that plaque from the sixth grade. Sixth Grade Scholar, wasn’t it?

So. You and me. The same person. That’s weird.