You can say it kindly. You can say it with a hipster ironic grin while wearing sensible shoes. You can say it forcefully and feel bad about it later. You can craft an argument with references and citation and voices more respected than yours. You can add “Fuck You” at the end of saying it. You can dramatically enact it through dance, vulnerable in your sweat letting them see your body if that’s what they need to stay interested. You can pass it quietly in a note in hopes of it reaching its intended audience. You can just say it again and again and again.
You cannot make them hear you. Not if they choose not to.
Say it anyway.
Say it because you need to hear it. Because it keeps you solid and engaged and believing in yourself. Say it because it is mother fucking interesting to you and it brings you to that place of awe. Say it because you are here and this present moment shouldn’t be wasted. Say it because you do not want to self destruct or drink yourself into a stupor like so many of the people you hoped to love. Say it because when you do it reverberates in your heart and that feels good; it feels like being alive.
For now your truth can be your own. Or you can tentatively or enthusiastically find places to share it where it just might be heard. Or you can lick your wounds and revel in being misunderstood if that is what your internal teenager needs today. You can be terrified of it and keep it in a tight space for now, observing it pacing there. Maybe it is content to be contained. Maybe not, maybe it is going to irritate you every day.
I know the people you needed to hear you didn’t. They didn’t, they couldn’t, they chose not to. I know. But even then, you continued to say it, to listen to yourself. And that is really important. Keep listening to what you have to say.
I know it doesn’t seem like enough. It may not be.
Say it anyway.