Dear Younger Self,

There really is no easy way to tell you this, so I’ll just say it, you will have regret. You will step on someone’s toes when you meant to leap over them and yell when you should whisper and wear the wrong thing to the right place. You will dance when you should sit and sit when you should dance. You will hate what is good for you and love what will leave a mark. Your regret list is already a long one, and Act Three is only beginning. But for the most part these are moths or confetti or frosty regrets; trust me, they will not linger forever. Each will cause you to pivot or stumble or need a rest. Afterwards you will rise stronger. Each time. My best advice? Have faith in yourself. 

A half century has passed since you graduated and now return to these familiar grounds where I write to you. You need to know that you are a survivor. In every dark corner you found a small light. When you graduated from high school and started out following someone you were most fervently encouraged not to follow, and you seemingly left behind countless memories with wondrous friends, you did carry with you the essence of a brave and relentless soul. She is always there. She is, in fact, still here. As lost as you get, and you will be lost, you will not lose yourself forever. 

Is is easy when you are young to think that life is easy. That maybe it even should be easy. But that is not true. No one gets out of this world without scars. Many are of our own making. Plenty are enough to cut you down and cause you to give up and lose your way. I am so happy to tell you that you did not quit. In fact, all the cliches about doors, closing and opening, are true. You can, along with faith, have trust in that too. Trust another door is there for you. Opportunity is always possible. Forget finding the easy route. That is certainly not happening, at least as far as I can tell. But you will swing one leg after the other, and keep going. You are stronger than you think.

You will continue to be utterly reckless. You will speed and be careless. You will make countless bad decisions and trust people you shouldn’t have. In fact you will not listen to any common sense at all for a string of years. All the harm that was done to you in your even younger years, you will court yourself. You will barely survive until 22. But even when you do, you will still be in reaction mode for years afterwards; remember that you were a mess and there is no easy path away from that amount of internal anarchy. This may not be what you were hoping to hear, but it’s true. The climax of your Part One is this: once you started making decisions with your own mind and heart and soul, you got through most of that sticky stuff. You must thank the angels or fairies or goddesses or family or straight-up good fortune for your survival. It is nothing short of miraculous. But you certainly need to thank yourself too because at your core, you did the heavy lifting and made your life work. 

You will have a family. Your babies will grow up to become extraordinary adults who you will of course love, but more wonderfully, you will admire. They will do things their own way too. They will find days and months and years can be hard, but like you they will rise up and strike out and change course and find their way. You love them more than your own breath. Together you have a bigger world than you can imagine right now, one that includes laughter and music and art, aqua oceans and woody paths and a full table at dinner, tireless work and goofy play, and you can credit your children for forging more spectacular roads for you to travel. 

You may think this piece is laden with cliche, and you are correct. But how else are you supposed to write to a younger self than to draw upon all the sages and their gems? I must say, walking around this campus today, the very one you lived on when you were the only voice in this piece, a girl floating through her high school years, I thought of you. It is easy to dismiss a teen, just as it is easy to dismiss an elder. But as I spent a reunion weekend roaming your old haunts, with even some of your most treasured friends, I saw glimpses of your long hair, your immediate smile, your adventurous slant, dashing from building to building, probably late for class or skipping dinner, arm in arm with him or her, talking no doubt under these same trees that I stand under today. I am reminded how happy you were here. Even in the throws of teenage angst, you were filled with glittery promise; returning this weekend I am so glad to witness that younger me once again, surrounded by such shiny stars. 

I think you might want to hear that you made it to your life’s destination. Some glossy pinnacle perhaps. Although I can’t confirm an ending point, I will let you know that you made it to many high points. To the top of the Eiffel Tower with your daughter. To an expansive desert vista with your son and grandson. To a roof top watching the sun set into the Pacific with your youngest. Stood on the edge of the vast Grand Canyon with your beaming wife. You have heard monkeys in the jungle, have swam beyond the buoy bells in the Mediterranean Sea and jumped into the shark waters of Maui and lived to tell the tale. You have eaten pasta in Italy and scones in Ireland, watched trains roll past in Texas for what seemed like hours and sped along in Japan’s fast train to visit an ancient shrine. You have biked for days on end to raise money for AIDS and slid down a snowy mountain trail in the Alps with a dozen students. Yes, you became a teacher. You kept writing and painting and dancing. You have loved greatly, and been loved like a queen.

Eventually, you will learn to breathe love in, and breathe love out, and when you practice daily you feel happiest. You will love your life, mostly: but know this for sure, it just gets better.