My Dearest Yesterday

A letter to my past

If I could only go back to my past self, and give that version of me a huge heads up, about all the bad decisions I made, things I overlooked and describe just how much of a massive snowball, that bad choices can make. Decisions back then, many of which seemed so nonsensical, and trivial were the beginning points to a nasty level of dominoes that went down strong, fast, and hard.

One of the main topics that is often brought up in conversations in treatment programs is the question of “if we knew then, what we knew now, what would we tell our past selves?” It’s a hell of a question, one that everyone should consider for themselves. Up until recently, I never really got into that type of topic as deep as I plan to now.

I have come to learn that a life like mine, one full of past mistakes, terrible choices, severe drug addiction, untreated mental health diseases, and hurting of others, needs some serious soul searching, and work starting within, if we are ever able to not repeat the years, like a constantly broken record.

I do hold the responsibility for the pain I have caused onto others including myself. I have learned that the process of making amends, finding forgiveness, and seeking remorse and a cleaned heart is something that just cannot happen in “days.” Nor weeks, nor months, and oftentimes, not for multiple years.

We all can probably relate to the scenario of that philosophy of having the wisdom of today, many years ago. It seems like human nature, and a typical way of thinking, when considering mistakes.

If it were a real thing, and we actually had rewind and fast forward buttons for life, of course I would snag it up in a minute. But since I can’t, I did want to finally work on a project just for my own mental sanity. Many even believe that a process of working on a letter to self, can be a good tool for dealing with things like guilt, shame, and regret. It’ll also most certainly help a lot with learning what to appreciate.

As a small kid, I would tell myself that the importance and priority of family, should be as important, if not more than friends. My friendships were spectacular growing up. However I think I often put family second to friends. The scales were a bit unbalanced. And while I had some of the greatest friends in my life, I might had a bit mixed up on the way to regard both family and friends.

I never really took a look at that and realized it, until looking at those times now. And it hasn’t been a lesson all learned with total ease. With the decades gone by, many life changing negative things in my life occurred. Friends have come and gone, but it’s my family that remained a constant. Even at my loneliest.

Friends that I would had been absolutely sure would still be a constant into our 40’s have long since moved on. I would have warned my past self about this. Because it hit my in a way, where the healing has taken years. The shock factor was a hard hit. Hard lessons right there. Thankfully, I have a little time to make up for that. But that’s only by the grace of God.

I would teach my past self that sometimes your mouth can get you in so much trouble. The type of trouble that sits for you for a long time. A negative mouth can cause negative things. Those things don’t always vanish either.

I would tell myself as a teenager to think with my brain, and not with my mouth. I would warn that often times the lowest of people can usually be the easiest ones to make us say, and do things we will quickly regret. And while we are regretting whatever it may be, the instigators can look good, while we instead seem to self crumble.

In my letter to my past, I would advise me to not allow the wrong people to get a rise out of me or control me. My past consisted of me regularly getting myself in trouble, because of issues that related to self control. Or lack thereof. It often made me lose control of things that could had been better off in my own hands, in my own control.

With those issues, I would then connect the topic of education and the importance of planning for the future. While I did graduate high school with decent, to average grades, I know now that I wasn’t taking a lot of things in my late teens seriously.

That is until I got involved in my community as a volunteer firefighter. While it did become my passion and my entire life and identity for over twelve years, I can now look at it and realize a fine line was drawn between passion and consuming, and many times it consumed my entire life. Way too many of my life decisions were made based on being in my town as a volunteer firefighter. And not always in a healthy way of thinking.

Maybe if I looked a bit out of the box a couple decades ago, I would had made a couple different, as well as healthier choices. Like deciding to go away to college or consider joining the military. Instead of remaining attached to my hometown a little too much. It was a great hometown, but it wasn’t the only place on earth.

My younger days were healthy, except for one very unhealthy habit. I was a regular cigarette smoker from my early teens to my late 30’s. While I have now been smoke free for a few years, I can look back and see just how awful my health was affected due to tobacco. Not to mention the fact that it made firefighting and playing sports much more difficult than it had to be. Because of the ease that I would to stop and catch my breath, after any type of physical activity.

One of the biggest things to ever affect my life came in two different ways. My issues with severe mental illness, as well as substance abuse and drug addiction. I went through a majority of my life telling myself I would never try this drug or that drug. I would never need to see a shrink, I would only get drunk on alcohol once in a while. I never imagined that depression, anxiety, heroin, and cocaine would not only come into my life, but also take over complete control of my entire being.

You never think for a moment that you will ever use heroin…. until you try it. It only takes one time use, to fall in love with it. It becomes a dark love affair, in which you are cheating on yourself and your life, once you get trapped into the world of addiction. While I always assumed that drug addiction was tough, I still could have never imagined just how very evil, painful, and frightening it truly was. I’d tell my past self trying drugs was the equivalent to selling a soul to the devil.

I would tell my past self that saying no to drugs isn’t just as useless a cliche, as it always seems to be. It’s very real, and it’s a very powerful lesson, and warning.

I’d warn my past self that no drug or high is worth any of the artificial peace that it temporarily offered. I would teach my past self that even if the prettiest ladies on earth are offering you an invitation into the drug world, to know that those ladies are just agents of the devil, disguised.

One of the last things I think I’d consider telling myself of yesterday is the education of the future technology he should expect. With that, I would then say to embrace and appreciate what was alive back then, but long gone now. Things that were a foundation to simpler, less stressful days.

The peace of no cell phones, the ease of one big television set with circular knobs. The ones where we watched a half dozen channels at the most. Appreciate the channels actually “turning off” each night, not to come back on, until 5am. At both those times, a video would play, with the national anthem going strong.

Enjoy simplicity because nowadays, it’s long gone. Embrace playing tag, hide and seek, and kick the can. And those loud rotary phones that rang on a landline. With no hint at all as to who was calling. But it didn’t matter, because it would always be someone we are happy to hear from. Enjoy those olden days, when a ringing doorbell didn’t scare us, nor did it make us run and shut all the lights out, as we peaked cautiously through the blinds. Remember that there wasn’t always an internet. I got by just fine using libraries and encyclopedias books as my google.

I can’t sit here and say, one era is better than another era. What I will say instead is that both times should be equally appreciated. Times long ago of simplicity, as well as the convenience of these modern times.

Sincerely,

Your future self, Michael.