A Letter to My 18 Year Old Self-Things I Wish I had Known

A Letter to My 18 Year Old Self

One of my oldest and dearest friends called me the other day. “I’ve been up in the attic digging around,” she said, “I kept all the letters you and our other friends wrote to me while you were away at college and I just found them.”

She stuck the letters in an envelope and brought them to me. I immediately recognized my handwriting on the envelopes. There were close to 40 letters addressed to my friend with just her first and last name and the name of our town and state. Think about that for a minute. No street address or box number. That’s how small our town was back then and it’s not much bigger today.

Anyway, the majority of the letters were written between August and December of 1974. I had just graduated from high school in the spring and I was attending a college of my parents choosing in another state. Annette, my friend, was a year behind me so she had not yet graduated.

1974 was before cell phones and the Internet. When we wanted to talk to each other we either had to call them long distance (which none of us could afford) or write them letters. And write letters we did….hundreds of them. I doubt if any of my other friends held on to them. I know I threw mine away years ago but because of Annette’s desire to hang on to things for sentimental reasons I was about to be confronted with my 18 year old self.

The letters stayed on my bedside table for several weeks and then one day I had time to read them. In a matter of minutes I was transported back in time and I quickly realized I had a few things I needed to say to this girl who thought she had all the answers so I wrote myself a letter.

Dear 18 Year Old Self,

I wish I could smack you up side the head and knock some sense into you (which I’m sure is what my mother wanted to do). Since that is impossible and because there just might be other teenage girls out there who might need to hear this I have decided to write you a letter about several topics you need some pointers on.

Music

These are direct quotes from letters you wrote in some of the letters.

“I heard “Killing me Softly” today and it made me think of…..”

“I was walking to class and the dorm window was open and someone’s radio was playing The Way We Were and I almost died.”

Many years from now you will still remember the words to these songs even though you can’t remember what you had for lunch. I don’t know why but it’s true. They stick in your brain like a big wad of bubble gum to your shoe and you can’t get them out no matter how hard you try. One day you will be driving along in the car and you’ll hear a song on the oldies station and “BOOM” you are singing along and your kids are looking at you like you have 3 eyes.

There’s a sound track to your life and whether you realize it or not the music you listen to as a teen will be with you forever, so choose the songs you listen to wisely.

Boys

Here’s a shocker for you. That boy you think you can’t live without who dumped you is doing you a favor. That’s right. Contrary to what you wrote in your letters, you DID get over him (and a few others) and each one of those experiences prepared you for when the RIGHT one came along.There’s a country song by Garth Brooks that will be published in 1989 called, Thank God for Unanswered Prayers that you will be singing for the rest of your days.

I know it hurts but so many times in life God has a bigger plan for us than we have for ourselves. Instead of moaning and groaning over what wasn’t meant to be you should have listened to your mother and had faith that a God who can turn a caterpillar into a butterfly can find you the man who was meant to be your husband and bring you together.

This is going to sound crazy to you but in 1979 you are going to be camping with your friends in the Florida Keys next to a group of guys from Michigan. The tall, dark handsome one named Bill will propose to you by Christmas and you will be married in 1980. You will have 5 children and 6 grandchildren and love him more than you ever imagined loving anyone.

A broken heart is better than a broken life; choose who you date very carefully because you might end up with both.

God

There’s a poem called Footprints that I wish you could read. You don’t mention God very often in your letters. You know Him. You believe in Him but you pretty much ignore Him and without Him to guide you you are in a dark place with no light and so you kept running into walls. Some of those walls don’t teach you anything so you back up and run into them again and again. I wish your head would listen to what your heart knows to be true. It would save you and your mother a whole heap of heartache.

Not everyone is blessed with a Godly mother but everyone has God as their Father and He won’t give up on you. Not ever.

Drama

Life is not one of Grandma Layne’s soap operas or your mother’s romance novels. Believe it or not peace is a good thing. You are so self-centered and all about being with your friends and living for the weekends that you are missing the world around you. Open your eyes and watch the nightly news! There are people all over the world who have it a heck of a lot rougher than you do. In fact, I wish I could take you and drop you in the middle of a third world country and open your eyes to real pain and suffering!

You are sheltered, spoiled and too much of a drama queen. Just because your parents made you attend a private school in another state doesn’t mean they are heartless barbarians. You are not in prison so stop being so melodramatic. Even if you don’t like it, even if you don’t stay there (I didn’t, I transferred to the college where all my high school friends went) you don’t have to make everyone around you miserable because you are unhappy at the moment!

Your first college room-mate, your cousin Martha, the girl who is so good she makes you look like Evel Knievel, will turn out to be your best friend and you will love her to the moon and back. Stop complaining to her about all that’s wrong in your world and learn to focus on your blessings (and she is one of your biggest blessings). She will show you God’s love and power in a way you can’t imagine.

You aren’t going to like this part of the letter but the truth is your mom gets colon cancer and dies at the age of 51. Martha gets breast cancer and fights it for decades but leaves you behind at the age of 58. You are going to mourn these two women for the rest of your life and regret every cross word you ever said to both of them. The good news is they love you and forgive you for being so cantankerous during your teen years but it still adds hurt to heartache when you know you weren’t always as kind as you should have been.

Think long and hard about the words that come out of your mouth before you say them. It’s easier to forgive than to forget.

You Think You Know It All

It’s obvious by your letters that you think you know it all. Because I have the advantage of being several many decades down the road I can assure you that you are wrong about more than you are right.

You think that your looks matter way more than they do and that being tall is a curse. One of these days you will actually like being tall and you will realize that what is in a person’s heart is way more important than whether or not they look like Farrah Fawcett. FYI – Charlie’s Angels is a mindless television show. Stop watching it when you should be studying.

You think you never want kids and refer to them as rug rats. Brace yourself, you might want to sit down for this…. You and your husband have 5 children and you both love them more than life itself! It turns out the diapers, bottles, work and worry are worth it after all.

What you think you know for sure changes over the years. Never assume you know everything.

Your Friends

Not many people in the world find a small group of friends in high school who can withstand the test of time. You did. The girls you met in high school will turn out to be your best friends for life. They will be there for you when your mother and father die. They will love you through some really tough times. Years and distance won’t come between you, they will try but they won’t succeed.

All that goofy stuff you wrote in each other’s yearbooks, one day you will read it and look at each other and laugh. Over the years your conversations will evolve and change. One decade you will be talking about husbands and the next your children. In the blink of an eye you will be discussing constipation, insomnia, plastic surgery, weight loss and things you never even dreamed about when you were young.

Congratulations, Knucklehead (my dad’s favorite term) you chose good friends…you did one thing right.

Choose your friends wisely and make every effort to keep in touch even in the busiest years. A loyal friend is hard to find and a true treasure.

In Closing

Truthfully, after reading your letters I realized I don’t like you very much but that is part of the problem, you don’t like yourself either.

You will eventually. You will mature and learn and grow as a person. Hang in there, things are going to get better.

No matter how much you don’t like yourself…. It. Will. Get. Better.

And then one day when you are old and wise like me you can sit down and write “A letter to my 18 year old self.” Trust me, you will have a lot to say.

Love,

Me-2018

My friend, Annette, made a good observation about the letters we wrote. Some where in all of those words and pages were the seeds of who the people we became. There are things I wish I could change about those years and things I wouldn’t dream of changing if I could—but in the end, we all turned out pretty good and you will too.

Just listen to the people who love you and keep searching for yourself. The truth of who you are is in there somewhere. Sometimes it just takes awhile to find it.

Here are some pictures of my friends through the years. There’s no friend like an old friend and I have known this ladies a very long time. Love them so much!

 

Martha Temple Todd 1956-2015

I miss you every day.

If you sat down and wrote a letter to your 18 year old self what would it say? Share in the comments!