sap, but true

I'm sitting here at work on my "lunch break", which actually means that I can put my phone on Do Not Disturb for one hour while I continue to answer e-mails, deal with course issues, respond to parents who think their daughter's housing conditions are "horrific and jail-like", AND I pop on to my personal Facebook account here and there. And I ran across this gem of "Advice To My Younger Self". The link to the whole article is on Huffington Post here. , but the part that resonated with me the most is her letter, below:

"Dear 21 Year Old Self,

As you leave college you will be thrown into the world without a life preserver, expected to swim upstream through challenges and hopes and dreams you never knew would come your way. I, your future self, want to tell you a little of what lies ahead so that in your darkest moments you will have hope that all is not lost.

You have been blessed with the most wonderful friends! I am happy to report that the ones you value most now will still be your closest friends in 10 years. You will come to understand that a man is not the answer to the fulfillment you seek. Your heart will be broken a few times and you will feel like you cannot survive the loss, but you will. In fact, you will not be married when you hit your 30s, but will be in a relationship you hope will eventually get there… after several years.

You will work at a really crappy job that you hate and then you will be unemployed for 13 months before landing your dream job. Your friends will get engaged, married, and then all have children at the same time, 10 in one year. Then they will have second children all at the same time. You will buy so many presents for other people’s showers, you will seriously consider pulling a Carrie Bradshaw and registering at Manolo Blahnik just for the hell of it. Some days you will feel like you are going insane and are so “behind schedule”. The timeline in your head is imaginary, it does not exist. You will turn into a crazy cat person who sends out Christmas cards with pictures of your cats in retaliation for all the Christmas cards you receive with babies on them.

You will go to Italy and love it so much that you decide to learn the language one day. Facebook will constantly make you wonder if something is wrong with you. Ignore it. You will lose a beloved grandparent. You will buy a house by yourself. You will miss the place you grew up so much and your heart will ache to go back there, but you will remain where your work has led you and visit often.

And through all of these situations when you question where your life is going and wonder if you made a big fat mistake, you will feel blessed by the love you have in your life. There will be moments when you stand looking out your kitchen window thinking back over the years and catch your breath at the treasures that exist in your life. You will deal with feelings of jealousy, depression, inadequacy, and hopelessness at times, but will emerge from each situation with resilience, a greater capacity to love, and the understanding that your story is your story and not anyone else’s. This knowledge, plus good friends to encourage you along the way, will bring you peace.

With Respect for the Woman You Will Be,
Your Future 30-Something Self"


Okay, so I'm not quite a 30-something yet, but it isn't far away. And she hit the nail on the head with so many of my recent thoughts. Maybe I've just been watching too much Sex and the City lately and eating too many Dove dark chocolates (which, by the way, have the note "Be your own Valentine" inside the foil wrapper. MAN those Dove marketing gurus KNOW THEIR AUDIENCE!), but I can't be the only one.

So for anyone else out there in the same place - eat those chocolates with no regrets, watch those sappy movies with no one rolling their eyes next to you, let yourself have a "woe is me moment" every once in a while, and then get up, look back on your life, look forward to your future, and count your blessings. You're not the only one. But you wouldn't know that, becasue it's not socially acceptable to post pictures of your Dove chocolates on Facebook. (yet)   :)