If I could return—
to the boy I once was,
the child with quiet eyes,
sickly body,
and a spirit shrinking under
the weight of names not chosen,
I would kneel beside him at six
and whisper:
You were not created wrong.
You are not an abomination.
You are not sin.
You love as you were created to love,
and that is holy.
At eight,
I would sit with the child
who felt strange and apart
and say:
We are not weird.
We are spiritual—
with a gift placed in us
before we even knew its name.
You are smart,
not by the earthly standard,
but in a spiritual realm.
The pain of rejection,
the comparisons to your brother,
your sister—
none of it defines your worth.
It is not who you are.
It is only the reflection
of those who could not see
the fullness of your truth.
At fourteen,
I would speak to the boy
thrown into an all-boys school
to “make him a man”—
only to discover
his queerness,
his essence.
I would tell him:
The snatching from New York City
to North Carolina
was not punishment.
It was a shaping.
Like Joseph.
Like Jeremiah.
Your path was predestined,
not easy—
but you will survive.
And you are stronger
than you ever dreamed to be.
At fifteen,
I would find the teenager
who felt invisible
in the eyes of parents and kin
and tell him:
You are called to more.
Your life holds purpose.
Your worth cannot be erased
by anyone’s fear.
To the child,
to the boy who carried Bobby as a name,
who bore bruises from our father’s hand,
I would say:
The pain you endured
was not who you are,
but it shaped the strength
of who you would become.
I honor you, Bobby—
for surviving, for forcing me to grow.
You made space for Robert to emerge.
And then—
to the man of twenty,
wild, wounded, searching:
Yes, you will make mistakes,
some nearly fatal.
But listen:
Do not live as a shadow
of the child who longed for approval.
Do not wear religion as a mask
that chains you to a marriage
you never wanted.
Stand against the weight
of family and church.
Stand in the light of your truth.
I would warn him
not to choose love
that wounds more than it heals,
not to give himself away
to those who only take.
I would tell him what I know now—
at sixty-five:
Wait for love that is whole,
a love that sees all of you,
and cherishes every part.
Do not settle for fragments
when you were born for fullness.
And so,
if I could return to every self—
six, eight, fourteen, fifteen, twenty—
I would gather them close,
and let them know:
You are not broken.
You are becoming.
You are a unique masterpiece, carefully crafted with precision and beauty.
Your natural abilities and talents exceed the limitations of worldly expectations.
Lastly, the self-knowledge that I will convey to my 50-year-old self enables us to recover our authentic, distinctive selves and live a productive, fulfilling life.
