Dear 21-year-old me,
I know where you are. It’s where you always are.
You are sitting inside your office at 200 Old Main, where you’re waiting for the designer to finish laying out the newspaper so you can edit it one final time before it goes to press. You’re tired and a little grumpy because it’s already 2 a.m., and you have class in 6 hours. You do this three nights a week, and it starts wearing on you after a while. I haven’t forgotten.
You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you that in 10 years, you’d be a managing editor once again, and not just for a college newspaper.
But I didn’t come here to talk about me. I came here to talk about you.
I have learned much in the years stretching between you and me and will learn still more as the years roll on, but I want to share my wisdom gained so far, so that maybe you can experience freedom earlier than I did.
You’re probably thinking, right this minute, about that B you got in your creative writing class last semester. It bothers you like almost nothing else ever has, and it will for a while. But it won’t bother you forever because you will learn this: One professor with an overly inflated ego saying you’ll never write well does not mean you’ll never write well.
You’ll come against all kinds of opposition in your life, so many people who doubt you and what you have to offer, and you will push through that opposition and surprise them all. Every time. Because you are strong and focused and pretty damn amazing, even if you cannot see that right now from where you sit, hands frozen by the winter sliding through cracks in those 100-year-old windows.
Waiting in that solitary room gives you plenty of time to think, doesn’t it? And you think of your father often, because you left that spring break visit a year ago on not-so-great terms.
That wound, it needs to be healed, so let me tell you something: Your father did not leave because of you, so stop trying to prove yourself exceptional. You are good enough just as you are. Good enough to write, good enough to dream big, good enough to make it all the way to the top, if that’s what you want.
You work hard for those grades, but they do not define you, so stop obsessing over that B in creative writing like it’s a great black spot on your perfect record. You comb this paper with editor-in-chief eyes, tired but efficient, but its perfection is not the perfection of you, so stop feeling like such a failure when a mistake becomes glaring in the light of the morning printing. You run six miles a day and eat salad and cans of green beans, but skinny does not equal beautiful, so stop killing yourself trying to look like you think you should look.
You are beautiful. I know it’s hard to believe, but you are. In another four years, your body will stretch and grow and tear to deliver new life into the world, and you will see it then, the beauty you carried all along.
That boy you think you love, he is not The One. The One is coming, and it will be soon, but he, with his leading-on ways and his divided heart and his take-you-out-only-when-he-needs-some-tutoring-or-test-answers habit, is most definitely not The One. He will show you off to his friends at the games because you’re a pretty girl who sings the national anthem, and he wants to say he knows someone like you, but he does not care for your heart like The One who is coming will. So don’t waste one more second of your time or one more corner of your heart dreaming of that sounds-like-a-reporter last name. The One coming will make you feel like no one else has ever made you feel, because he looks you in the eye like you have something important to say, like you contribute more than just beauty to the world.
Enjoy these days. I know you’re carrying a full load, juggling those five writing-intensive courses while you wear the hats of editor-in-chief and substitute teacher, but soon you’ll be planning a wedding on the side, too. And this is all vital practice for when you become a full-time working mother. Appreciate your time alone; it’s a luxury. You will understand this in four years.
I know you see that man walking up the stairs to class, his stick clicking the way, and you have to look anywhere else but at those feet climbing stairs blind, because the sheer determination and will to achieve in the face of difficulty is just…
And I know you read Shakespeare aloud in class and your voice fractures for the emotion of it, and you pretend to cough so they won’t all notice…
And I know you watch that old teacher nearly bent double with age, who bikes all the way down the road from Austin, and I know you feel the emotion of that persistence because your fingers shake when you’re typing the story, and you close your office door so no one will be the wiser.
Stop trying to hide all these big emotions. This is who you are, an emotional wreck most of the time, and that’s OK. The world needs your big emotions because it needs someone to care. You care deeply, and sometimes that can change the world.
Don’t worry so much about what you’ll do after graduation. I know that’s easy for me to say because I know all the job offers that come, and I know how you’ll spend those months with the Houston Chronicle and then those years with the San Antonio Express-News, and I know all the fascinating people you’ll meet who will infuse your life with rich stories and deep wisdom. Your life will be a series of adventures, and you will learn that seasons are fluid and rhythmic, that nothing is ever written in stone, except what is written on your heart, that both the expected and unexpected changes hold the same beauty—those blissful months when you think you might be walking on clouds are just as beautiful as those jobless months that set you on the writing path and see you cut back creatively so you steward better.
Don’t be so hard on yourself. I know you love to learn and want to do the very best you can do, and I know you value trying hard for everything. But lighten up. It’s OK to miss one of those morning runs every once in a while. It’s OK to be late to work every now and then, those days when traffic bottles and parking places run low and your car won’t start so you have to walk instead of drive. It’s OK to take the tram and forget to get off because you’re so deep in Shakespeare’s As You Like It.
When you bake a cake for The One, and it falls apart, it’s OK. He’s not going to take back that engagement ring because he just discovered you don’t really like to cook. When you forget your key and your roommates forget about your call to request they don’t lock the front door and you’re stuck outside in the rain, it’s OK. The One will climb two stories and break into your patio door and open the front for you, and he likes showing you this hero side.
When you let that distasteful cartoon slide even though your gut says no but the editorial staff hails “free speech,” it’s OK to stand by your decision when the hate mail comes flying. Don’t take it personally. They don’t know you and what you stand for. And, anyway, it’s good practice for when you’re doing your own writing and the haters start hating. Your thin skin will never grow thick, but you will learn how to handle the criticism. Eventually.
Remember to laugh at yourself. When you trip on those stairs and don’t even try to catch yourself because you took some allergy medicine before going to class and your head is full of fog, laugh at yourself instead of hiding your face in burning shame. People fall on those steps all the time. You see them every day. You are not the first and most definitely will not be the last.
When you sing the wrong words during that song, be sure to laugh at yourself later. When you stumble over sentences during your Sylvia Plath speech, don’t forget to laugh. When you pronounce incorrectly that word you’ve only ever read silently to yourself while reading aloud in class, laugh.
It’s OK to make mistakes. This is what humans do. You’ll go crazy trying to be so perfect all the time. Because you’ll roll down the hill instead of up when you’re driving that old 5-speed Civic, and you’ll completely miss that tennis ball in your PE class, and you’ll walk across campus for that awards ceremony in heels, and you’ll roll your ankle and almost fall (Don’t worry. Soon there will be such a thing as TOMs shoes, and you’ll only ever wear flats again), and some of your friends will see you do it. Laughing is all you can do.
You are an exceptional person just the way you are. Ignore the world and be yourself.
All the best,
Me.
