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Antara Prakash, 25, decided to write to herself at 13 because that was the age when she “was beginning to notice shifts in my mindset. I was noticing different interactions with friends, and how much importance is placed on your self-image Continue reading
Posted in Fear, Friendship, Health, Identity, Letters
Tagged a letter to my younger self, dear me, Fear, gratitude, identity, letters to my younger self
This letter was created for the book “What I Know Now About Success.”
If you had met Paula Deen in high school in Albany, Georgia, you wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised. Paulann Hiers had the personality you know: gregarious, bubbly, and funny. As captain of the cheerleading squad, she was practically royalty in the South of the 1960s. “Life was just so great. I had so many friends,” recalls Paula. Continue reading
This letter was written by Kristin Brown at age 27 to herself at age 24. It was three years after her dad’s car accident and untimely death. This was compounded by the quarter-life crisis she was already experiencing. Continue reading
Linda Lombri had just returned from China with her 8-month-old daughter Anita whom she had adopted there. It was the fulfilment of a lifelong dream.
They were living in a large one-bedroom apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn. They shared the bedroom. Linda was working as a marketing manager for a packaging company in Queens, commuting via subway for one hour each way, since she did not own a car.
After finishing her 2-month Family Leave (all she could afford to take unpaid), Linda expected to work part-time through the summer months to spend more time with her baby. That did not happen – her boss changed his mind.
Looking back, she still regrets that she did not work past her fears about money, quit her job, and find something closer to home. They were living in the right place, but she was not working in the right place – at least in terms of logistics.
Linda could have made her life easier – hers and Anita’s. This is her letter to her younger self at age 47.
Dear Linda,
You are at a point in your life when you have just taken a leap of faith. You are the mother you always wanted to be – even though you are now considered (by others) middle-aged at 47.
Don’t stop now. You must believe in yourself and listen to your inner voice. I know you are too scared to change jobs to find something closer to home. You think you don’t have choices. Or that you will not find a job that will be fulfilling AND be able to feed and raise your child.
Stop worrying! Stop regretting! Take action and have faith that things could turn out fine. You didn’t listen to the great aunt who said you were too old to be a mom. So, turn off that outside voice now, and tune into your inner knowing.
You will never know how it will turn out unless you stop hesitating and start doing. Each road you might take could have bumps and turns. But the path you are afraid of just might lead you where you need to go.
So, relax. Have faith in yourself again. Follow your inner voice. Someday you will discover that this voice is right more often than it is not. And, anyway, you can always change again. You are resilient – more than you know. So stop worrying about the safer road. Things will turn out okay.
With compassion and confidence in you,
Linda
This letter was written by Nakita Hanson from Williamsburg, Brooklyn at 22 years old to herself at age 14.
Nakita was bored in class, but afraid to be different. But she took a leap of faith, applied to a new program, and was accepted.
Dear Nakita,
I know that you are afraid and excited all at once. Will you be smart enough? Will you fit in? Will you be ostracized? Though all of these questions are valid, you can’t let them prevent you from going with your gut. You have to be confident, and rest assured that your inquisitiveness and willingness to work is enough to get you through. You don’t know all of the answers. And that’s ok. You can still call mom, and although she can’t help with calculus, she knows just what to say. You are stronger than you know. You will spend time with the most interesting friends that you will ever meet. It’s not the time to focus on the small things like grades and tests. It’s these friendships that will make you who you will become.
Love,
Nakita
This is a letter by Veronica Schoen at age 23 to her younger self at 17.
Dear Veronica,
You are in a very dark place, and you don’t know how to escape. You are a prisoner inside your own head, telling yourself life isn’t worth it. You’re in an abusive relationship with your boyfriend, and will be for two and a half years, because in your mind he is the only one who loves you. Your parents are going through a divorce, and have more on their minds than you.
You will leave your boyfriend with the help of a school counselor. But then you jump into another guy’s arms six months later, who will mentally abuse you for four years. Life seems to carry nothing but pain. The only thing you don’t realize is that you are creating it all for yourself. Not once do you believe that you are beautiful, funny, intelligent, or that there is a purpose for your existence. The physical pain you once did to yourself, the drug abuse to find an escape, was never the real you. You didn’t want to live past the age of 21, because you thought the pain was never going to end.
Well, guess what Veronica, you are 23 now, and you are still here. You made it. You gave yourself a second chance to live, because you got rid of everything standing in your way. The people you allowed to have such a huge effect on you are gone. The pain in your heart is now gone.
You are, and always will be, a beautiful, funny, intelligent person, and your existence does matter. You know how hard life can be, but you have the tools to overcome it from now on. Yes, you learned everything very young, but your past is what made you. Before, life was a burden, and now it is nothing but endless possibilities. Here’s to you, Veronica, for being someone at the age of 23 who you would have looked up to at the age of 16, when all this started to happen.
With neverending amounts of love,
Veronica
This letter was written by Kristin Brown at age 27 to herself at age 24. It was three years after her dad’s car accident and untimely death. This was compounded by the quarter-life crisis she was already experiencing.
Dear Kristin,
You’ll continue through your early twenties being single. This will seem like both a curse and a blessing. You will feel the loneliness overtake you when you lose someone closest to you. This loss will transform your life and you will travel the world.
The life experiences that result from this year of exploration will define your idea of success. Remember to keep a clear prospective of who you are and what you value – the rest will fall into place. The only thing keeping you from what you want most is yourself. There is more to life than wanting to be accepted and having it all figured out.
So let go of not wanting to be alone. Of wanting to be accepted. Don’t go looking for ways to conform. And don’t be afraid to fail. Most failures are not from lack of effort, but from lack of better timing. One missed turn could mean new opportunity. This paradigm shift will continue to ring true as you discover that what you want cannot be achieved by striving. But by waiting. And in the waiting you’ll find that it will work out better than you expected.
Lastly, remember that no matter where you are, you are loved and that’s enough. Keep that love in your heart and trust that loneliness is temporary. Your life is for the taking, so go for it. You’ll never regret it. You have nothing to lose.
Loving you,
Kristin
This letter was written by Virginia Cornue to herself at age 23.
She was living in a NYC westside brownstone with her fiancé who was nine years older. The stylish NYU village apartment of former college mates was filled with their family and friends, waiting for her to emerge. She sat on her friends’ bedside moments before the ceremony. Wearing an elegant Fred Leighton Mexican lace dress, long blond hair streaming down her back, tears threatening to stream down as well, her brother offered a choice that might have changed her life in unknown ways. “Is there something you want to say?”
She had an anguished choice to make. Should it be, “Go tell them the wedding is off!” Or look at him with a calm equanimity she certainly did not feel, rise, straighten her dress, pat her hair, take his arm and go face her chosen fate?
Bound by a southern code of honor ‘your word is your bond,’ her duty to carry through, embarrassment at facing and possibly disappointing family (Who knows? They all might have been relieved), and an inchoate fear of her fiance’s response, Virginia rose, took her brother’s arm, and stepped forward on the first of many questionable paths. Those paths have led her to where she is today: a senior single mother of a wonderful daughter adopted from China, a PhD, co-founder of a small publishing company, a burgeoning and published writer who is at last gaining mastery of her voice.
Had she validated her true voice, the voice which desperately wanted to say “No!” she believes she would have begun writing then and been very successful—financially, with love, with tons of kids, and especially in work. So. dear Ginny (only a very few are invited to use that nickname). here is some advice to you at age 23.
Dear Ginny,
You look lovely sitting there in your lace dress. Everyone is waiting for you to emerge. You look terrified because you’re faced with a decision you want to make and you dread its repercussions. These opposing choices have grabbed your young throat and strangled you. You know what you want to say and you cannot. “Is there something you want to tell me?” your brother Frederick asks. You know he means, “Do you want to call this wedding off?”
You want to say, “YES, please go out there and tell them she says ‘No.’ She is not getting married. Enjoy the refreshments, but there will be no wedding today. Enjoy the view of the Village, but there will be no wedding today. Admire the Picasso sculpture, but there will be no wedding today.”
I want to tell you, Ginny, you are not obligated by your mistaken and misplaced sense of honor: “But I gave my word,” you tell yourself.
Give your true word to yourself.
I know why it is so hard for you to speak in your best interests. You don’t know and won’t know until you are nearly 60. You don’t know all the evil details of your father’s abuse. You don’t know that you cried out, “No, no, no, no,” to him in the dark in the middle of the night when you were just a baby.” You don’t know that he violated every precious part of you. And you felt ever afterward at your deepest core powerless to say no on your own behalf. No wonder you were/are such a valiant warrior for women.
But darling Ginny, you do need to know that you must speak your truth. You always know what it is. So say ‘No’ to this step and to any step that does not fill you with joy, with contentment, with satisfaction, with pride. I promise you, embarrassment, self-denigrating duty, and wrong-headed obligation will be fleeting.
What will be yours to gain is your power to speak for yourself; for your right to decide. Do not worry. You will be fine. You will be beyond fine—you will be happy and filled with confidence. You will have true integrity—because your word will flow from your truth. Everything will unfold well for you. Your creativity will flow out and enrich you and others.
I love you with all my heart. Say no, no, no to decisions that do not serve you. Attend the little niggle, the hesitation, the prickles, the mental red flag, the floating sense of dread, the sick feeling in your stomach that tell you all is not well. And say yes to yourself. Hold tight to this truth.
All my love and support, your older self,
Virginia
Posted in Fear, Identity, Letters, Romantic Relationship
Tagged Fear, identity, Romantic Relationship
Terra Larsen is an Executive Sales Director of Epicure Selections from Campbell River, British Columbia. She started her business in April, 1998 and has been among the top three saleswomen in her category in 1998, 2001, 2003, 2004 and 2005. She has also been a Top Sponsor and Top Sales company-wide for many years, and was voted for Epicure’s Caring and Sharing award. Before Epicure, she was an accountant at a land development company where her career was going great guns. By 1997, she had been there seven years, and was negotiating many of the company’s real estate deals. She was a staunch perfectionist, she said. “I was such a serious person. Life was about rules.”
Along came a fellow named Jeremy, who was on the company’s construction team. He was a lot of fun and seven years younger than Terra. He asked her out approximately 10 times before she said: “Okay. But only this once.”
Terra had previously run away from two different marriage proposals. She obviously wasn’t eager for a serious relationship. However, Jeremy’s persistence persuaded her and, after a long engagement, they married. She was afraid of making the wrong choices and ending up divorced, like her parents.
Not long after the marriage, Terra found herself pregnant, despite her many precautions and her plans to travel extensively with Jeremy before they became parents. This shook the couple up. But not nearly as much as the birth of their daughter, Aysha, who cried unrelentingly for four months. “People would spend a little time around her,” Terra remembers, “and then they’d flee, family included.” She and Jeremy were soon exhausted and emotionally depleted. “As much as we both loved her, if we could have changed our minds at this point, and given her back, I would have to say we might have.”
Terra, now 42, is writing to her younger self eleven years ago, when she was 31 and going to doctor’s appointments after doctor’s appointments trying to figure out what was wrong with Aysha.
Dear Terra,
This is sheer misery. You are exhausted from lack of sleep and your nerves are frayed from Aysha’s continual, unremitting wail. But far worse than the physical toll is the psychological pain. How heartbreaking it is to feel like a complete failure as a mother. You feel utterly unable to help this infant.
Colic. Everyone says she has colic. The doctors and nurses give you a condescending look that says, “Welcome to motherhood.” Yet your instincts tell you something is terribly wrong. And deep inside, the anger is mounting. All you hear from other moms is that it’s such a joy to be a new mother. Why is everyone so close-mouthed about nursing, crying–all the awful parts? It makes you feel like a monster.
My dear, poor Terra. I don’t doubt you. And I don’t blame you. It is okay to feel terrible. Really, it is. You are not the only mother in the world who has felt this way.
Trust those instincts of yours. They are correct: Something is terribly wrong. Aysha has a split abdominal muscle that pinches her intestines causing great pain. It will take even more visits to the hospital before a nurse will see this condition and—finally—believe you. Finally, you and Jeremy will get some relief.
Unfortunately, by then both of you will feel like you’ve been through a war. And your marriage will be a casualty of this experience. You’ll feel enormous guilt over your feelings about Aysha, and this will be compounded by remorse about choosing to end your marriage.
But these experiences will change you for the better. You’ll no longer be a rule-bound person. You’ll become very flexible. You’ll trust your instincts. You needed these kinds of extreme experiences in order to free you from your straight-jacketed ideas about life.
But the greatest benefit is the one that you will finally confer upon yourself: being at peace with your choices. In time you’ll recognize that ending the marriage was not only good for you, it was good for Aysha. How? Because you and Jeremy will excel at co-parenting, as separate people. But together, you never could have made it work.
With serenity, at last,
Terra
Posted in Control, Fear, Health, Letters, Motherhood
Tagged Control, Health, motherhood
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