I wrote a letter to myself when I was 14 to when I was 24, and I opened it on New Years Eve. Then responded. This is really long and pretty stupid, but it's a glimpse of me ten years ago, and a glimpse of me now.
January 1, 1997
Wednesday
Age 14
Dear -----,
How are you, this fine wintry New Years day? This year wasn’t very wintry. It seemed more like summer. So what are you doing? 24 seems so far away. I know everyone says it goes by so fast, but how can I know that? When I am 24, I’ll be able to say it to younger kids, kids who undoubtedly won’t listen. But I think that’s the way to enjoy childhood more, not having to try and enjoy it. Like being healthy: not having to worry about being sick.
Well, where are you? What New Years’ resolutions have you made, and have you fulfilled mine? Are you coming to the ideal me I want to be, or has that image changed? In some ways, writing to myself is better than writing to others. I don’t have to worry because it’s me I’m writing to, whatever opinions you have of me, looking at me you can learn from it. If you despise me, don’t be like me.
When I was little, (I’m so old now) I used to look to the future as I’m doing now, and wonder if I’d lose all sense of spirit and soul, all that made me me. It terrified me. Is anything more scary then the possibilities of the future? Time, the mysterious void all try to control, yet none can master. Here is a way to travel through time. Will you write back to me? Tell me of your sorrows or joys. Truly, I’m curious enough now. Maybe through the years I’ll want to grow younger and younger instead of older. Life’s burdens too heavy for me! When I was younger I couldn’t imagine myself in my teens. I thought everything would be so different. I guess it is, but lucky for me it’s a gradual change. You know, how no time seems so important or real as the present.
I know I am still so young and don’t know anything, but already I kind of wish I was younger still. I don’t want to grow up. I do, because of the endless possibilities, but I can’t imagine me, the real me, in those possibilities. It seems so far away that any thoughts I have turn to little fantasies, and everything I say I wouldn’t really say. That’s the person I’m trying to be, the person in those fantasies. You’re ideal character may change; I may _____ in some of the ways I want to be, but keep those goals, and strive always to reach them. I’ll try to get in the habit now and make it easier for you.
I’m learning, ever learning. What knowledge do you hold in store for me? There is nothing so alluring as the beckon of the unknown, the wonder of places never to be reached but with time. Will you look back at me with…with what? Pity, scorn and contempt, or sorrow and wistfulness? How fare thee, compared to me? I live a simple life, yet even within its simplicity I feel pain and joy. How much more real are those emotions to you? What joys and trials, secrets do you carry in the memory only you can have? The memory I will someday have!
Just think, you’re old enough to be married, and have children. Does that seem like nothing to you, as you go through the gradual shift from girlhood to womanhood, swept up in life and not noticing the change a bit, nothing except normal life? What profession are you in? Isn’t it funny how my _____ could change so much over the years? Never stop changing. It’s ever a constant battle.
What’s more important, are you happy? Whatever life you’ve chosen, are you glad for the choice? I am just coming into the church now. Will you hop back out of it? I hope not. To know that I’m holding out against some things (like drugs) that I don’t want to do in the first place, but I could end up doing anyway, it seems a waste. If I’m going to live right now, I hope you don’t ruin that. Little though the pain may be, and greater though it could be if I gave in, I beg that you do not waste that pain. If you do, mock what I’m going through now and content only with your immediate happiness, know that you will forever be haunted with my long-forgotten memory.
Oh, but just to think of me in the future. How is your family? What friends have you made? What successes have you felt, and what failures? To think of how I will feel reading this (if indeed I live to read it). You have all the answers, though not to your future. Know that I am envying you for the knowledge you hold. Yet I fear how I may turn out. Dispel that fear; make me proud.
It’s funny, the many different roads to trod. Maybe not funny, interesting. So many different ways to go. What will you do with your life? All I can say is I wish you good luck, and the best wishes from one who cares most. Isn’t it funny, that those you love the most you cannot show your love to? I thought of that in the shower, thinking of nature not people, and though I don’t have much experience with that, it seems true with people.
What fantasies do you hold, what books do you cherish? Do write back, though by that time, I’ll not need the letter. I only skimmed the surface of things I wanted to dive in, but for now this will have to do. And know that many more letters are coming from me. Whatever your future, it will not be dull. I’ll keep you stocked with things to read.
So farewell this night, and know that I am putting my faith in you…and the Lord. I’m watching you! Please, erase my fears through the years. Goodbye then, ‘till I see you again, and always know that I love you.
Your loving self
January 1, 2007
Provo, Utah
Age 24
Dear -----,
You delight me with your letter, and I’m happy to hear your thoughts on life and growing older. I was slightly fearful of what the long-awaited letter would contain, as thoughts of an immature 14 year old with silly ideas and dreams kept popping up in my head. I find myself pleasantly mistaken, however, and think you are more thoughtful than I had anticipated. Of course I will answer you, the best that I can, though a lot has happened through the years. Tonight I am well, having spent a very enjoyable Sabbath with friends/less than acquaintances, and with myself. It is quite a wintry day, and hasn’t seemed a bit like summer for a while. Looking out over the Salt Lake Valley today, I thought the world seemed a perfect picture of winter, and sleepy towns, and thought for some reason of a Charles Dickens novel, like I always do, though I defy myself or anyone else to show me what novel depicts such a scene. Tonight I am sitting alone in my apartment in Provo, Utah, celebrating the New Year by thinking about old years and the things I want to accomplish in the new one. I will start school at BYU in a week, with one year left until I graduate. That has taken awhile, but like you said, the future holds a lot of unknowns. The time has gone by quickly, and then again it seems like I was never you, and have always been me. But then this me seems different than the me of a month ago, or two months, so I guess we really do always change.
I have made quite a list of New Year’s resolutions this year. As always, some about health and how this year is the year I’m getting into shape, I’m eating healthy, I’m exercising, I’ll be at my prime. I also made some very specific spiritual goals, because that is really the most important, and the easiest to let slip. The whole theme for the New Year is health: spiritual health, physical health, mental health. There’s nothing making me sick but myself, and the way I react to the forces around me. So it’s time to take charge, to stop seeking for medicine or a different environment as though that were the cure, and to make those changes in my life that will bring me health and keep me healthy. I don’t think I ever have fulfilled resolutions that I made, so it seems a fruitless effort. But still I try. You know, I can’t remember what you’re ideal image for us is, so I don’t know if I’m any closer or not. I imagine not. I’m so far away from my ideal person that I can hardly believe I’m close to yours. I struggle with the same things I think I’ve been struggling with since junior high. I may be better at seeing my weaknesses though. Or at least some of the favorites. I guess there are always more, hiding away, that I can’t even deal with yet.
I remember that fear. I remember specifically one day, thinking about drugs, wearing my DARE shirt and having this unexplainable fear of becoming some person I didn’t want to be, doing those things I knew I shouldn’t do. I had no intention at that time in getting involved in any of it, so I wonder now why I should have been afraid, why I would have worried about myself. And I can’t explain now why those things did become a problem, and where I went, the me who knew it was wrong. I think I didn’t realize at the time the power I had over my own life; I was too used to letting others run it for me. You did have a problem with that, for a long time. You also had a problem with dramatic writing, so it would seem. I think you were a bit too influenced by the books you were reading at the time, so I have to laugh at some of your phrases and fancy ideas. But secretly I like them too.
My sorrows and joys? There have been so many of them. You don’t know it, but in a couple of months you’ll find out that you’re moving to California. You’ll be there throughout high school, and you’re not going to like it. Your testimony will grow, and be tested by having to stand alone in your beliefs, with no more friends to rely on to take you to church. But somehow you’ll stay strong. I don’t know why now, looking back on it. You shouldn’t have had a chance. But it’s the one thing you’ll hold on to those three years of high school. You’ll go to church every Sunday, with mom for a while, then by yourself the rest of the time. You’ll wake mom or dad up everyday to take you to seminary, where you’ll feel awkward and out of place with all the Mormon kids. You’ll feel out of place through all of high school, not knowing how to be friends with “Mormons,” but not wanting to get back into the old crowd from before. But you will make a couple of really good friends that teach you a lot and allow you to be yourself, something very important to you. You’ll grow closer to your family, closer than you could have imagined, but it will make their choices even harder for you to deal with. Eventually you’ll grow hardened and stop trying to think what will happen to them, you’ll stop caring if they’re not “churchy,” as long as you enjoy time together. But you’ll also lose your faith that anything can change. You’ll find joy in nature, trips to the mountains and the river, trips to grandpas up in the woods. You’ll enjoy new hobbies and interests. And then you’ll leave home forever, knowing very well that once you move out you can never really move back in; things will be different. You’re not quite ready for that change, and miss home for a long time. But things get better. At college, you make mistakes. You focus on things other than school like a typical freshman, stay up way too late every night and sleep through all of your classes. You deal with betrayal, issues those you love are dealing with, finding a major and path for life, and overcoming this thought that everyone notices what you do and judges you for it. I think that’s the biggest lesson you learned at college: that no one cares about you nearly as much as you do. That no one notices what you do or thinks very long about anything you said. It’s a very liberating realization. There are so many more…falling in love, going on a mission, learning new things and seeing new places, but those I’ll have to leave for you to discover. They’re both too painful and too beautiful to describe here.
One thing I can say is that not for an instant do I want to be younger, or even to be you again. I’ve made so many mistakes; done things I regret, missed opportunities and made a fool of myself time and again. But it’s all necessary in order to learn, to grow. I’ve done things that I hate; I’ve seen things that I’d give anything to be blind to…except that that would take away the knowledge that I treasure, that would make me blind again to a truth that exists, and leave me vulnerable to discover it all over again. I am only me because of the things I’ve learned; the things I’ve seen and the things I’ve done. I know what I know through those experiences. I would never want to go back to being a child, to have to face the acquisition of that knowledge yet again in all its heartache and pain. I sometimes wish I could go back for the innocence, but the challenge now is to find that innocence again, despite what I’ve done or witnessed. I have to believe that’s possible, or I don’t know what the point is.
It is hard to think of certain things and believe that they will ever happen to me. Marriage is as far away as it ever was, and I can’t even fathom what people are thinking or feeling when they do it. Going through the temple, however, was another one of those unfathomable things that I thought would happen someday, but it seemed so unreal, and now I’ve been endowed for almost two and half years. So those things come, and we feel unprepared for them, and it doesn’t seem real when it happens, not until we look back and remember how odd it seemed, and how natural it is now. I think you think too much about the future, about those fantasies and dreams of events so far down the road. That’s one of the New Year goals-no more daydreaming, no more imagining. You’ve lived your life feeling like you could be happy and fulfilled when certain things happened, missing out on the amazing things happening to you in that very moment. Some of those dreams will never come true, and for those that do, when they come you’ll have plenty of time to think of them. Live in the present, and enjoy each day as it comes. That’s the advice I have for you, or really for myself, because it’s something that I struggle with still. The future does beckon me, and I struggle to see through the clouds at what the path of life has ahead, just around that next bend in the road. Or river. I like river better. I’ve been frustrated lately that I didn’t know, didn’t even know what I wanted to do with my life, to help the world. Goals are good, and dreams worth fighting for, but sometimes more knowledge, more insight is needed. I know that there is a path; I know that God guides it, so I’m trying to have faith and enjoy the thrill of not knowing what life has in store for me.
I am old enough to be married, and not. I could have lots of kids by now, but don’t. That’s a stage of womanhood I still haven’t reached, and I don’t think all changes are gradual. Many are, as every day a new thought and a new idea influences who we are. But then there are big changes too, memorable moments where even if we didn’t all of a sudden change, we all of a sudden realized we’d been changing for months and were now almost completely different.
Am I happy? Yes. And no. But mostly yes. And that’s the goal for this year; learning to be happy all the time, learning that life is what I make it, and that I am responsible for it. I am incredibly blessed. Sometimes it seems if I learn of others who are struggling, who are suffering, who have so little, I would be happier, knowing all that I have and the opportunities given to me. But mostly it just makes me sadder, learning of the pain in the world. Because I don’t think it’s fair. Granted, when something bad happens to me, it’s not “fair”. But then something bad happens to someone else, or someone’s whole life is bad, or people are sick and dying and starving and suffering for no reason other than where they were raised, what country they were in, or who they’re parents were. It doesn’t make me happy, thinking my life is so much better than theirs. It makes me grateful, yes. And it makes me want to take action, do something to help, give them some of what I have had in abundance. The hardest thing for me to deal with is seeing others in pain and not being able to help, listening to someone’s sorrow and not knowing what to say or not understanding. We really like to understand, you and I, and when we don’t, sometimes we resent others. Sometimes we work to gain understanding.
Happy, yes. Happy that I am in the church; I’m still in the church. Since you made that ever so hard decision years ago, I think you’ve very rarely doubted it. Never through high school, which is when your testimony was the weakest, your experiences with God the fewest, so it is surprising to me how stubborn you were about it. At BYU it was an adjustment to define your values and figure out just what you believed in. At home, you took what you were told at church and you lived it. At school, you were surrounded by members of the church, who had all heard the same council, and chose to live it differently, so you had to adjust. But you did. Then you went on a mission, and while it was challenging at first, the miracles you saw and the personal experiences you had sealed your faith, and you thought you would never falter. But coming home. That was probably the hardest thing we’ve done yet. I’m sorry for you, having to go through that. Of anything I could tell you, I would say “Stay there! Don’t leave those people, that country, or the absolute purpose you had in life.” It’s easy for things to seem meaningless after that; your spirituality affected the well being of many people that you loved more than you’ve ever loved, so you fought for that with everything that you had. At home, it’s hard to see yourself as that important, hard to see what exactly it is you’re fighting for. So probably your biggest time of doubt has been this last year, knowing what you need to do to stay spiritually strong, but for some reason hesitating to do it. It’s almost like it’s painful to get that close to God again, like there’s a sting you haven’t dealt with yet. But this new year will see to that. We know what’s true, and we know what we need to do, and we’ll do it. Just lend me some of that stubborn resolve, if you can, and help me remember how strong we can be.
Hilarious that you specifically mentioned drugs as one of those things we needed to stay strong about, and something you were “missing out on.” Luckily the move put an end to that and all the other temptations you faced. I’m sorry it was so painful for you to be left out, but I know it strengthened you and helped you stay firm with so many other things.
The family is well. Friends, we have made many. So many. So many good people, so many “kindred spirits.” You really do like people, for having pretended to be afraid of them for so long, and at BYU there are so many with similar views and morals. And so many with crazy ideas and very different morals. But they all enrich and enliven. As to successes and failures, again too many to mention. There have been many. I feel this warm, happy sense of memory as I read your letter and think of the answers to your questions. There have been so many things, most of them forgotten, the others on the edge of my perceptions, only as much as they’ve impacted my life in some way. But all of them equaling me. And none of them helping me with my future, with my road. How very perceptive of you, to think of me, and how I would still be gazing into the future with awe and excitement. No, there are no answers to my future, not yet. But there will be. And one day I’ll be an old grandma, sitting in a rocker, thinking over her life, and I think whatever happened, she’ll have no regrets. Except maybe one or two ridiculous rhymes thrown in to a letter written to herself, rhymes she knew were stupid even as she wrote them. :) Hopefully she will have made the most out of everyday, and learned to accept whatever life brought her way instead of expecting things and fighting disappointment when they didn’t happen. I hope she seized each moment and did the things she wanted to do, made her dreams come true-the ones she could- and replaced the ones that died with time. I guess we’ll have to wait and see, until another letter comes to fill us in. Thanks for the time to reflect and appreciate all that life has brought. Thanks for the hard work building the foundation of the person we will become. I remain,Your loving self :)
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