Teen Librarian Confession: I’m done with confessions

• I never watched Buffy 
• I don’t really like John Green’s books
• I never finished The Book Thief, To Kill a Mockingbird, Jane Eyre, Harry Potter, The Outsiders…
• I only read what I have to
• I don’t have tattoos
• I never dyed my hair
• I hate video games
• I think the music most teens listen to is stupid
• I don’t Facebook/Twitter/Instagram
• I don’t read series
• I don’t blog
• I don’t get manga

And it does feel good to get these things off our chests, but to what end? Are we hoping that someone will finally give us the piece of the puzzle that we’ve been missing that will help us enjoy what we haven’t enjoyed, finish what we started, or be who we don’t think we are?  Is this the librarian version of a humble-brag, proving that we don’t just go along with the trends, anti-trend as they may be, but instead are truly blazing our own path into libraryland?

This isn’t coming from a place of frustration or an attempt at a humbler humble brag.  I’m far from the ideal teen services librarian.  But that’s the thing — we all are, because there’s no way we can all be everything to everyone.  There’s no way we can be as enthusiastic about the things we innately love, or as passionate about the things that have been a part of our lives since our own youth, or as well versed about the aspects we have studied voraciously as we are about the things we don’t care for, just learned about, or have never studied.  It’s just. not. possible.  And that’s ok.  That’s actually better than ok.  Because when teen see that we can geek out about stuff, they see we’re human.  When they see us comfortable in our own skin, they see that we can be role models.   When they see us reflect on something we’ve loved forever when we try to relate to them about something they just found out about, they can see that the experience that they’re having might just be a transformative one for them; just like it was for us.

-Heather