From : Michael J. Bertrand, Apartment 601, 6611 Cooney Road, Richmond, BC
To : M. John Bertrand, 135 Belmont Street, Summerside, PEI

I honestly don’t know where to begin with you. There is so much ground to cover in a mere one thousand words.

I will try to break it down for you.

1. Stop being a pussy

I mean that. Right now, you are a wimpy whiny wuss, and it does not serve you well. You need to learn that in life, some things hurt, and that doesn’t mean they are not worth doing. You need to decide to stop being the person too cautious to do much of anything and become the person who may fail, but always tries. All people really want from you is that you give it your all. They are far kinder to those who try their hardest and fail than they are to people who are too chickenshit to even try. Go try lots of things and see which ones seem worth the effort.

2. Go outside more

I know, I know. You hate having to walk to school and back while all the other kids get there in a nice warm bus or their parents’ cars, and that you life consists of school, TV, video games, and reading, but you still need to nudge yourself out the door more often, even if it’s just to the corner store on Russell Street near where Lise lives. If you move more and become more accustomed to being outside, you will not end up fat and agoraphobic later in life.

3. Go ahead and develop that big ego

You’re amazingly smart. I know you know this, but I also know you don’t take it seriously at all. That’s because it has never seemed like an asset to you. School has always been absurdly (even insultingly) easy for you (and that’s not going to change any time soon, by the way) and it is hard to value anything that comes that easily. So you don’t even think about it most of the time, and when you do, all you can see is the ways it had made life difficult for you. The social ostracization, the extreme boredom in class, the inability to relate to what kids your age usually do… all you see is the problems.

But even though by now people have stopped treating you like you are anything special and in fact tend to treat you like you are especially annoying and inconvenient (just like at home, but with attention!), you have to realize that you are extraordinary and exceptional and that nobody is going to motivate you but yourself.

So go ahead, think the world of yourself. You are one special little dude. Let this truth fill you up and keep your self-esteem afloat. Pretty soon, you will feel the urge to rise, which leads to my next point….

4. Develop some ambition

I know that you are not, by nature, ambitious. You are a laid back, dreamy sort of person who thinks ambitious people waste a lot of energy on things that don’t really matter, but you are wrong. So very, very wrong.

Ambition gets you places. Wherever you want to go, ambition is the engine that gets you there. I know you hate hearing about how much potential you have, but the truth is, that big brain of yours can open a lot of doors for you, but you will have to do two things you hate : focusing, and applying yourself.

Ignore what society tells you about what a person like you who applies themselves is like. There is a lot of middle ground between lazy slacker who coasts through life and neurotic overachiever who sweats bullets at the thought of a B. You can aim for the sky and still be a laid back dreamy kind of guy.

The only difference will be you are now working hard to make those dreams come true. And yes, that means you need to…

5. Learn to work hard

I know your life is crazy fucking easy on many levels (and crazy fucking horrible in others), but that does not mean there is no value in hard work for you.

Just think : if a regular person can go far with hard work and perseverance, how far could someone with your gifts go?

If school isn’t challenging you (and it isn’t), go find something that will. You might find it in the library, reading everything they have on subjects that interest you. You might find it out on the streets, trying to find the right social group for you.

Hell, you might even find it on a sports team. Stranger things have happened.

Or you might even find it via a job. Sure, you’re only twelve now and your paper route seems like a job to you, but in the future, you will want (then need) actual employment, and so you might as well start gearing up for it now.

When you are old enough, get a McJob. Yeah, I know, your middle class upbringing makes that seem like death. Better to be unemployed than work at a menial service job!

But Anne and Catherine both worked at Tim Horton’s when they were going through college in order to help pay their tuitions, and you don’t think any less of them. Take that attitude yourself. Get the job, make extra money, and help your parents pay for your future education like they did.

In fact, you should try to see if you can pay for it all yourself. Trust me on this one. It will work out a lot better in the end, and by paying for it yourself, you will speak volumes about how your parents neglect you without saying a word.

Which brings me to my last point :

6, Stick up for yourself in the family

You have just as much right to be there and want things and needs things as the other three Bertrand kids. It’s not your fault that you were unplanned. Stick up for yourself and your right to be heard and reckoned with. And don’t be afraid to act out, either. If that is what it takes to get their attention, fine.

You are, and have been, treated very, very badly by your parents and your siblings. You have been made to feel unwelcome in your own life. That is unfair and extremely wrong.

Stand up for yourself, and make a place for yourself in the world.

Even if you have to kick some ass to get it done.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.