Letter to Self
Dear (younger) Self,
Allow me to introduce myself. I am the older, somewhat wiser, version of ourself. We are 50 now. Stop laughing, it's NOT funny! When we get to be our age, we won't think it's so funny.
I'm writing to us to share some wisdom in hopes that we will learn from our mistakes, before we make them.
I'm not here to lecture. I know that when we were young, we were wild and impetuous (you'll need to look that up). In truth, even in our older age, we tend to walk on the wild side once in a while. It's not a bad thing. It just means that we love life and embrace it wholeheartedly. Don't ever stop that. It's a good quality to have.
So, what do I want to tell us? Here are a few things.
Tell our parents that we love, love, LOVE them. And show them too! Don't be embarrassed by the fact that they are older than the parents of our classmates. It doesn't matter. They have so much love for us and show it in the little things they do...like take us to basketball games when I'm pretty sure they wanted to stay home on a Saturday night and sleep, baking cakes for cakewalks, painting giant Christmas cards on tag board (which is the prettiest in all of the school Christmas pageant). They may be older, but they are certainly wiser and full of love. They'd do anything for us, and they do. They leave us far too quickly. So when their health starts to deteriorate, spend more time with them! It's one of our biggest regrets.
And listen to their wisdom and really pay attention when they talk about their family history. It's ours too, you know? It really sucks in our older age when we try to remember something dad said about his family and we shake our head saying, "I wished I had paid attention." Better yet...go get the fricken tape recorder and start asking them questions and get it down on tape!
Take pictures. A LOT of family pictures. And those summer nights sitting around the picnic table that you think is totally boring? Suck it up girlie! Those were the greatest nights of our childhood and we'll wish we could relive them time and time again.
While we are talking family, we're going to be part of a sandwich that - due to the age of our parents - we didn't ask for. You see, you're going to always be the youngest of six kids; the baby of the family. Although there is quite an age difference between us and our older siblings, they love us unconditionally. We may not feel like their sister when we are younger. They're already adults with families of their own. Sometimes it will seem like we are just like one of their children. Hang in there; it all changes. We have a great relationship with them now; the memories we make in our older years with them are priceless.
And the good part? We have the best of two worlds. We are close to the same age as our nieces and nephews. When we are young that may seem like a royal pain in the ass. We get stuck running after them, playing ball with them , or just taking care of them while their parents and our parents are talking around the kitchen table. That's alright. Just do it. Know why? We have amazing relationships with our nieces and nephews now. We sort of grew up with them. The memories of those growing up times - our younger years - are the ties that bind us together now.
In our older age we still walk to the beat of a different drum. It's different than when we were younger and we labeled ourself nerdy or awkward and we didn't have a lot of friends. In our older age, our quirkiness is accepted and even admired. We have friends and they love us for who we are. So do not fret over being labeled weird. Those who called us weird are insignificant to us now and a distant memory. We have true blue friends in our life now who love and accept us for who we are.
Stay away from the tall dark handsome man who steals your heart with his good looks and smooth tongue. He breaks our heart in unimaginable ways and the scars will take years to heal.
Don't be afraid to take chances and step out of our comfort zone. There are some major decisions we make that brought us to where we are now. I'm not saying we made the wrong decision, but had we taken a chance and believed in ourself, we would be living a much different life right now.
Education is important. Pay more attention to school. And again, don't be afraid to take chances and believe that we can be anything that we want to be. Don't settle for what society says a woman should be... be a police officer, a social worker, an addiction counselor or a psychologist if we want to be.
Always remember to brush our teeth, morning, noon and night.
We like to be goddesses of the sun. So use sun screen and moisturize, moisturize, MOISTURIZE!
Ohhh, and never, ever go to bed without taking off our makeup. K?
Eat our vegetables and experiment with something other than corn or green beans.
EXERCISE!!! Start running, do yoga, ride bike, swimming. Just do something! We wasted a lot of good years being depressed and unhealthy because we were out of shape and in a dark place. We could've avoided it .all with a better diet and exercise. We teach yoga now. We're good at it..but we'd be much better at it if we'd started at age 10. lol
And do NOT start smoking! Trust me on this one. We don't look very pretty with a cigarette hanging out of our mouth. Aand the breath is ghastly!
This is important: When our cat Boris suffers his first seizure, take him to the vet right away. If we'd have done that, he might still be sitting on my lap right now. (I still miss and love my little buddy) :(
There will be people that cross our path, some of them good, some of them bad. Trust our instincts. Learn which ones are there to teach us something and which ones are there to catch us when we learned the lesson the hard way.
Most of all self, love us. We took some hard knocks in life because we didn't think that we were worthy of love. We are.
Allow me to introduce myself. I am the older, somewhat wiser, version of ourself. We are 50 now. Stop laughing, it's NOT funny! When we get to be our age, we won't think it's so funny.
I'm writing to us to share some wisdom in hopes that we will learn from our mistakes, before we make them.
I'm not here to lecture. I know that when we were young, we were wild and impetuous (you'll need to look that up). In truth, even in our older age, we tend to walk on the wild side once in a while. It's not a bad thing. It just means that we love life and embrace it wholeheartedly. Don't ever stop that. It's a good quality to have.
So, what do I want to tell us? Here are a few things.
Tell our parents that we love, love, LOVE them. And show them too! Don't be embarrassed by the fact that they are older than the parents of our classmates. It doesn't matter. They have so much love for us and show it in the little things they do...like take us to basketball games when I'm pretty sure they wanted to stay home on a Saturday night and sleep, baking cakes for cakewalks, painting giant Christmas cards on tag board (which is the prettiest in all of the school Christmas pageant). They may be older, but they are certainly wiser and full of love. They'd do anything for us, and they do. They leave us far too quickly. So when their health starts to deteriorate, spend more time with them! It's one of our biggest regrets.
And listen to their wisdom and really pay attention when they talk about their family history. It's ours too, you know? It really sucks in our older age when we try to remember something dad said about his family and we shake our head saying, "I wished I had paid attention." Better yet...go get the fricken tape recorder and start asking them questions and get it down on tape!
Take pictures. A LOT of family pictures. And those summer nights sitting around the picnic table that you think is totally boring? Suck it up girlie! Those were the greatest nights of our childhood and we'll wish we could relive them time and time again.
While we are talking family, we're going to be part of a sandwich that - due to the age of our parents - we didn't ask for. You see, you're going to always be the youngest of six kids; the baby of the family. Although there is quite an age difference between us and our older siblings, they love us unconditionally. We may not feel like their sister when we are younger. They're already adults with families of their own. Sometimes it will seem like we are just like one of their children. Hang in there; it all changes. We have a great relationship with them now; the memories we make in our older years with them are priceless.
And the good part? We have the best of two worlds. We are close to the same age as our nieces and nephews. When we are young that may seem like a royal pain in the ass. We get stuck running after them, playing ball with them , or just taking care of them while their parents and our parents are talking around the kitchen table. That's alright. Just do it. Know why? We have amazing relationships with our nieces and nephews now. We sort of grew up with them. The memories of those growing up times - our younger years - are the ties that bind us together now.
In our older age we still walk to the beat of a different drum. It's different than when we were younger and we labeled ourself nerdy or awkward and we didn't have a lot of friends. In our older age, our quirkiness is accepted and even admired. We have friends and they love us for who we are. So do not fret over being labeled weird. Those who called us weird are insignificant to us now and a distant memory. We have true blue friends in our life now who love and accept us for who we are.
Stay away from the tall dark handsome man who steals your heart with his good looks and smooth tongue. He breaks our heart in unimaginable ways and the scars will take years to heal.
Don't be afraid to take chances and step out of our comfort zone. There are some major decisions we make that brought us to where we are now. I'm not saying we made the wrong decision, but had we taken a chance and believed in ourself, we would be living a much different life right now.
Education is important. Pay more attention to school. And again, don't be afraid to take chances and believe that we can be anything that we want to be. Don't settle for what society says a woman should be... be a police officer, a social worker, an addiction counselor or a psychologist if we want to be.
Always remember to brush our teeth, morning, noon and night.
We like to be goddesses of the sun. So use sun screen and moisturize, moisturize, MOISTURIZE!
Ohhh, and never, ever go to bed without taking off our makeup. K?
Eat our vegetables and experiment with something other than corn or green beans.
EXERCISE!!! Start running, do yoga, ride bike, swimming. Just do something! We wasted a lot of good years being depressed and unhealthy because we were out of shape and in a dark place. We could've avoided it .all with a better diet and exercise. We teach yoga now. We're good at it..but we'd be much better at it if we'd started at age 10. lol
And do NOT start smoking! Trust me on this one. We don't look very pretty with a cigarette hanging out of our mouth. Aand the breath is ghastly!
This is important: When our cat Boris suffers his first seizure, take him to the vet right away. If we'd have done that, he might still be sitting on my lap right now. (I still miss and love my little buddy) :(
There will be people that cross our path, some of them good, some of them bad. Trust our instincts. Learn which ones are there to teach us something and which ones are there to catch us when we learned the lesson the hard way.
Most of all self, love us. We took some hard knocks in life because we didn't think that we were worthy of love. We are.
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