Letter to My Much Older Self

This is how I hope to reflect upon my life many years from now.

It has become common for people to write letters to their younger selves — usually in an effort to help that younger self feel better about the life choices made or the decisions reached and acted upon at the time where a lack of experience or maturity may have caused them to make rash choices. Often, the older self can see with the 20/20 vision that comes with looking back where the land mines were or when the perfect opportunities reached out. Letters to the younger self are usually intended to lay to rest any anxiety carried throughout life that made the younger self doubt the path their life was taking.

THE PAST IS CARVED IN STONE — STOP TRYING TO ERASE IT

I definitely question some of the choices made and the decisions reached in the decades of life that have preceded me. I also realize those years are now forever logged in the unchangeable history book of my life.

What’s done is done — never to be undone.

And so, I would like to put my energy into something I have at least some limited ability to influence. What follows is what I would like to be able to say to myself in my later years. (Some of this will require me to pick up the pace a little now and in the decades to come in order to make this a reality)

LETTER TO MY MUCH OLDER SELF

Good morning self, It’s a sunny, bright morning for early fall at the end of September. So, you’ve just celebrated your 85th birthday. Quite a milestone, I would say. You’ve exceeded both parents’ longevity by a decade or more. You’re still in good shape if I do say so myself. You have lived a good life. It’s been a crazy, somewhat unconventional ride but amazingly satisfying. You made a wise decision to go to college. You made a less wise decision in choosing a major that would never really be applicable in the workplace (where you spent all of your traditional working years). But, that’s okay. One of the lessons you learned in life was that education, any education, was valuable in your evolution as a person. Congratulations on choosing to be a lifelong learner who did a reasonably good job keeping up with technology and the rapid changes it brought to the world.

YOU CAN’T STOP THE WORLD FROM CHANGING

Speaking of changes — You’ve seen a lot of them, haven’t you? You remember things this generation only sees in museums and history books. You grew up in a generation where teenagers spent long hours on telephones with friends — telephones that were dialed using a rotary dial. These friends were real, live people with faces — not “thumbs-up” or “likes” from a nebulous group of cyber acquaintances. You weren’t the first to jump on the Internet bandwagon. You heard about it, knew what it was for, but didn’t really get drawn in until the company you worked for forced you to convert all of your pen and paper knowledge to a screen and keypad. It wasn’t long before that new-found knowledge opened up your world. That same company would carry you through your entire career — something unheard of in the twenty-first century where today’s job now becomes the stepping stone for tomorrow’s job.

That same company gave you something else that is rare for today’s workforce — a pension, a significant vehicle for personal savings, stock options that would supplement your income for the rest of your life — in short, a level of financial security that would allow you to pursue other interests and dreams every year of your life.

Your personal life brought you a joy you will always cherish. Two marriages, the first ending in a sadly premature death to leukemia, filled your adult years with love and adventure. Through circumstance and thoughtful decision, you did not produce another generation with children of your own. While you will never be able to compare what your life may have been with children versus the life without children that you have known, you take satisfaction with the other contributions made to this world in your lifetime. Many may see the lack of natural children as a negative in life — You chose to see it as your choice from the many options available to you.

YOU GOT TO SEE THE WORLD (A LARGE PART OF IT, AT LEAST)

You dreamed of traveling as a child. You built a fine collection of postcards from every city, state, country, and continent you could gather from friends, family, friends of family and family of friends. Your adult years saw that dream become a reality. While others may boast a larger list of ultimate destinations, you exceeded your own expectations by traveling widely throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, and many European countries. You can safely say you fulfilled a childhood dream.

WRITING WAS ALWAYS IN YOUR BLOOD

You were a writer of sorts from the first time you could form a complete sentence on paper. At eight years old, you published a “family newspaper” to recount the mundane issues of an ordinary, limited life to your older siblings. No one was greatly impressed, but that didn’t stop you. Back then, you wrote because writing filled something in you that nothing else could. Thinking back, that may have been the one and only time you wrote for the pure love of the craft. No one else’s opinion mattered. (Sigh . . . If only you could have recaptured that innocence somewhere along the way) You continued to write throughout your life. It proved to be one of your greatest outlets for the good and the bad experiences that befell you. Losing your first husband and your mother within months of each other proved to be a real kick in the ass — but those words on paper helped you make sense of it all. An early diagnosis of breast cancer shook you to your very core — you turned that pain into an ebook that helped bond you with a community that learned to appreciate each day of living the hard way. Still, at 85, your words are a major reason for waking up each morning. There is more to say, more to see, more life to live — your words will always reflect that.

THE JOURNEY IS NOT OVER

Self, you’ve lived a good life. I dare say you did what you set out to do with your limited time on this earth. At 85, you’ve completed the lion’s share of that lifetime — but, not all of it. Tomorrow, you will wake up again. Your motto in life has always been — “I wake up each day to see what will happen next.” Self, there is more — you better go check it out.