She is young.
She admires the night sky;
Listens to Elliott Smith with a candle lit, and fancies herself in New York
Or maybe London
…Perhaps she'll stay in Kansas
It doesn’t matter because
She is young.
Her hair is too straight.
Her eyes are too dark; her bones impossibly thin.
She is restless
In the way that only a too-quiet girl from a loud small town
Can be
She's older now;
Determined, but still surprised,
To be a woman who understands that she is responsible for so much more
Than just her own life
…And even if she isn’t
It doesn’t matter because
She's older now.
Her hair is still straight
Her eyes a softer brown, flecked with the slightest gold
She is restless
She is restless
In the way that only a too-earnest girl in a make believe world
Can be
What she would say to her 21-year-old self:
ReplyDeleteYou don't always have to wait. Sometimes you can have it both ways. It may just take a little extra work and determination with some compromise thrown in to get what you want. Sometimes if you wait there will be time to follow your dreams later, but don't wait too long. Run down your dreams, even if you have to chase them in bits and pieces, a little at a time. Maybe your dreams will change and maybe not, but always keep a dream in your heart.
What she says to her almost twice as old self:
The things that caused you to wait were worth it, even if waiting was not as necessary as you thought. It is late, but it is never *too* late. What will you do today? How will you start to follow your dreams? Well then, start.
Thank you for sharing that, Jenni! My mom came to visit a couple of months ago and brought with her a box full of old letters, artwork, and other momentos from my youth. In it I found a letter to my future self (the criminal psychologist...haha), which was a writing assignment in school. I thought I knew everything, of course, as most 14 year olds do: who I would be; how I should come to be that person.
ReplyDeleteI think I'll reply to that young girl- thank her for being such a big dreamer; reassure her that it really will be okay...that what may seem like a wrong turn is really just our intuition telling us we may know ourselves a little bit better than we think we do. Or maybe I'll tell her nothing; just let her figure it out on her own. She is a teenager, after all...it's not like she'd listen to me anyhow. ;)