While Clementi reads notes to late younger brother, students address their childhood selves
'Each of us knows what it's like to be different, an outsider wanting to be let in. These letters shine a light on our outsider selves and hopefully help us realize that we are set free by the very things that seem to be oppressing us.' – James Lecesne, actor and writer
If Fullamusu Bangura, a Rutgers junior, could go back in time and speak to the girl she used to be, she’d let her know that eventually, she’d learn to love her first name.
“All of the teasing will build a fierce love of your name and you will stop considering using your middle name,’’ she informed her inner 6-year-old.
Rudy Maag let his 15-year-old self know that he would survive the name calling and harassment he endured on a daily basis for being different than his peers. “You were tough, the toughest,’’ he said. “You will need to be strong for when you stop hiding. And you will stop hiding.’’
They were among a small group who participated last week in “The Letter Q,’’ a writing workshop at the Tyler Clementi Center in New Brunswick, which helps young adults in the digital era navigate transitions in their lives.
Their instructions? Compose a letter to themselves as children.
‘What is it you wish you had known about yourself . . . and can you tell him or her that thing?” asked Academy Award-winning author and actor James Lecesne, who led the workshop.
On Sunday, Nov. 3, the students read their answers at an event sponsored by the center, featuring a reading by James Clementi, brother of Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers freshmen who committed suicide in 2010 after being bullied because he was gay. 
Clementi read from a series of letters he wrote to Tyler after his brother’s death. Although his letters and the letters read by students were written to different people, there was a common thread.
“We were both writing to someone who might have been helped by a letter they could never read,’’ he said. “It’s hard to see when you’re stuck in a bad situation that things will get better. Years later, it’s really important to honor that journey,’’ said Clementi, who had never before given a public reading of the letters.
Published last year in Out Magazine, Clementi's notes are a vivid and moving account of his memories of Tyler and the void left behind after his death.
“I guess I never really told you how much I admire you, how much I wish I was more like you,’’ wrote Clementi. “I always saw a confidence and strength in you that I didn’t recognize in myself.’’
Although Clementi wrote the letters to cope with his feelings of grief and loss, they were also a way to let the public know that his brother was more than a victim.
“With so much media coverage, he was lost as a person. His spirit was missing,’’ said Clementi. “The best feedback I got was when people told me, ‘after hearing you read, I feel like I understood who he was.’”
According to Lecesne, letter writing – to one’s self or someone else – promotes honesty and creates a sense of intimacy between author and reader. “I think this encourages people to get real with themselves and say the thing that they need to hear the most. I'm always struck by how honest and articulate young people are when doing this exercise,’’ says Lecesne, a contributing editor to The Letter Q anthology, a collection of letters from LGBT authors addressed to their younger selves.
He is also the founder of The Trevor Project, which offers crisis intervention services, including a suicide lifeline, for LGBT teens. It’s named for his short film, Trevor, the story of a fictional 13-year-old gay boy, told in monologue form, which won an Academy Award in 1995.
Although the act of sharing knowledge in hindsight is especially valuable for gay youths, whose childhood search for mentors and information can be so difficult, Lecesne says the letters to self exercise has a universal appeal.
“Each of us knows what it's like to be different, an outsider wanting to be let in. These letters shine a light on our outsider selves and hopefully help us realize that we are set free by the very things that seem to be oppressing us,’’ he said.