Dear Today

I wrote a letter to my adolescent self on Friday after being inspired by another blogger and in honor of Dove’s latest self-esteem movement, which asks: “What do you wish you’d known at 13?”

There was so much more I could have said looking back on who I was and how I acted back then, but I kept it simple… and really, the more I read it, the more I realize it is almost all stuff I still have to tell myself today; so much of it is things I’m still learning and still need reminding of and encouragement with.

As we get older, we become someone we’ve never been before.  It all comes together based on what we’ve been through, who we’ve known, and the choices we’ve made.  I doubt that who I am now is who I imagined I’d be when I was a teenager, but I am glad for that.  I have seen and experienced so much since then that allows me to be more than I ever could have dreamed of.

I have grown a lot in recent years, becoming someone who is in so many ways completely different than who I used to be.  I am not sad to have lost old parts of myself, because I think the new parts are better- I am becoming more aware of who I truly am, what my authentic self is all about, and that makes for a far more meaningful and joyful life.

I know I’ll continue to grow… forever.  Life comes and life goes, but if we are living based on our own values, on who we are deep down, then we are living true to who God has created us to be, which to me seems to me like the best possible way to live.

“To be nobody but yourself in a world that’s doing its best to make you somebody else, is to fight the hardest battle you are ever going to fight.  Never stop fighting.”

~ E. E. Cummings