Dear Younger Self
Stay sweet, blessed, amazing, creative, loving, imaginative, and weird. You are amazing! I love you sweet girl!
Writing letters can sometimes trigger emotions within us that we buried deep down long ago, or evoke emotions that we weren’t even aware of. Letters to self, whether to our present self, or past or future self, allow us to reflect on our accomplishments, as oftentimes we are our own worst critics. These moments of reflection allow us to truly appreciate all that we have accomplished and take a moment of self-care to give ourselves a pat on the back. This is why I chose to write a letter to my younger self. I also wrote a letter to my future self, which I will share in a future blog article.
Dear Sharron,
Can you believe that you are a full-on adult now, and have been for many years? You are now in your forties! I know. Shocking right?! I know that you consider that old, but now you laugh, because you realize that it is definitely not old. But at your age now, the idea of your thirties or forties seems so far off into the future, but here we are. I have to admit though, one of the best things about being an adult is that you will get to stay up as late as you want, eating your favorite food, which is still rice, anytime you want.
When you become a teenager, reaching that ripe old age of thirteen, you are going to be so excited. You will even start singing the teen song that you made up to your parents. You will proudly sing and exclaim, “I’m a teen, I’m a teen, everybody scream! I’m a teen!” But of course, your parents will just look at you and say yes you are, but nothing is going to change.
You are going to think that when you become a teenager that it will somehow translate into you being able to stay out later, stay up later, and do more. Boy are you in for a surprise. Most of that will not come until you are around sixteen years old. But remember, your parents love and care about you, and although you will get mad about having a curfew which was much earlier than your friends at the time, some of whom didn’t even have a curfew, you will appreciate it when you get older. Trust me. Your parents simply want to keep you safe. You don’t know it now, but this is also teaching you respect and boundaries.
Try not to grow up so fast. At your age now, you cannot wait to be a teenager, and when you become a teenager, you cannot wait to turn twenty-one. But there is no rush. Enjoy being a child, then a teenager, then a young lady, and then an adult. It will all come but enjoy the moment. In the meantime, enjoy traveling with your parents. You are blessed beyond measure and have visited more places than many do in their lifetime. You may not appreciate the significance of that now, but it is developing your love of travel, which you still enjoy to this day. You love traveling so much, especially meeting new people, and experiencing new cultures. Your favorite place in the world will become Dubai. You love it there!
After high school, you will go onto college, and get a degree in Communications. You will also take several journalism classes as well, which will help you to attain that internship at FOX News in your hometown of Philadelphia. You will really enjoy that internship, where you get to cover all kinds of news stories, in a very busy newsroom, where things will change all of the time, but you will thrive. After you graduate from college however, you decide to go a different route, instead of pursuing communications and journalism further, because you do not want to move away from your parents just yet. But that is fine. Sometimes, we take different paths to get to a particular destination, and that is ok.
Throughout your twenties, you never really discovered a career, but instead you decide to work in different industries from education to communications, and you call this your decade of exploration. During this decade, you will gain, develop, and enhance your communication skills, interpersonal skills in dealing with people, computer skills, and more. This will all help you in the future, because although these jobs are not your passion, all of these skills that you develop are transferrable to not only other positions, but to life in general.
People are always telling you that you should be a lawyer. Most of that is because of your leadership abilities that people see in you already. You are a natural leader, and have never been a follower. You take charge of situations, and like to resolve issues. Well guess what? You went to law school, and are now a lawyer! You should be so proud of yourself. Law school is not easy, but you will get through it. Overall, being a lawyer will be a great experience, but there will come a time where you will be over it. However, you will always have that esquire behind your name because you earned it, but you will find yourself yearning to get back into communications, which you have loved since college. Although as of the time of this letter, you still practice law, your heart is no longer in it. But you remain faithful and believe that an amazing opportunity is going to arise in communications because it will. You are also working on a book of poetry, and a screen play.
One of the many things that I love about you is that you still have a very vivid imagination, and you still enjoy writing and speaking. Your public speaking skills will get better over the years, and you will not be as nervous to speak in front of a crowd. But never give up. There will be times, where you will doubt yourself or think that you cannot do something, but always remember that you can do anything. You are smart, creative, funny, and imaginative.
Never lose your creative spirit. Never lose that imagination of yours. You will eventually start a blog and podcast called This Realm of Existence Blog & Podcast. That name may not mean anything to you now, or you may be wondering why you chose that name, but trust me, it will become clear; it all stems from the spiritual journey that you embarked on about six years prior.
One day in the future, you will realize that you cannot live for anyone else, or what society expects of you. You can only live for yourself and what makes you happy, as long as you are not harming anyone. Remember to live your life on your terms. Do not allow anyone to tell you what you can or cannot do, because there are no limits. Those who try to tell you what you cannot do are projecting their own fears and insecurities onto you. Ignore them. You can do anything you set your mind to do.
By the way, you still have your cabbage patch Homer. As you know, this is the last gift that Mom-Mom Ruth gave you before she passed away, which is why Homer is so special. You will have him forever, and pass him down to your first child. He is currently sitting on your sofa in the condo that you purchased a few years ago.
Can you believe that you own a condo? This was the first property you purchased, and you were so happy and excited. I can tell you that you are going to purchase many, many more properties. I cannot tell you when or how, but it is going to happen. You will see. Also, do not fret when you get to this age and see that you are still not married and do not have any children yet like you thought you would. Everything happens in divine time, and you don’t want to be married to just anyone. You want to be married to the right one, and it is going to happen. You are also going to be an amazing mom. Just keep believing with your entire heart, that it will happen, because it will.
Promise me that you will keep learning and keep exploring. You love to travel thanks to mom and dad, and you have seen some beautiful places around the world. When you visit these places, be in the moment. There’s this thing now called cell phones, where you take your phone with you. It’s not just stuck on the wall in the house anymore. You may not understand what that means now, but you will see what I mean in your twenties. Back then, some people had them, but now, almost everyone has them. The sad thing is that so many people are always on their phones. You can play games on your phone, send messages to people, talk to them, and it can be cool, but do not let it consume you. Get outside and get in the sun. Walk around and explore. It’s fine to take pictures to remember things and to have those memories to look at, but don’t be in your phone the entire time, as the world passes by around you.
Stay sweet, blessed, amazing, creative, loving, imaginative, and weird. You are still weird! But guess what? There are so many weird people just like you, called your soul family. You will find them when the time is right. I love you sweet girl!
