Today was just another day at the office. This cutie had woken us up at the usual hour of too damn early but who could stay mad at her? As I finished changing the second pee-pee diaper I looked over to find these two snuggled up close and it just gave me pause of how different my life has been from where I thought I would be in my twenties. With that said, I would like to talk to the twenty year old me and let her know a few things.
First, and this will be hard to swallow. Your mom WAS right. Those hoop earrings made you look like a cheap whore and the fact that your mom telling you this only made you where them more leads me to my next point.
Stop worrying so much what other people think of you and start worrying about why your not listening to what you think of you. Because that tiny voice you are so quick to ignore WAS right. (Righter than even your mother was about the earrings.)
I'm still impressed with all the things you were able to accomplish by your twenties. You were such a driven woman that my only wish was that you would have put down your check list of "things to accomplish" long enough to really have savored the moments when they happened.
You and your friends lived a charmed life in your twenties. You could always be assured that your band of three would be in with the in crowd. But know this, that the night you were rubbing elbows with Queen Latifah and P. Diddy at the Delano will be rendered insignificant when you spend your first night with your newborn child in your hands or have a dance party with your ten year old in your pajamas. While partying with Jimmy Johnson and the Dallas Cowboys before the Superbowl was fun, it will be no match to the celebration of your kid's cowboy themed birthday party. (Cowboy costumes and horse rides included of course.)
While in your twenties you spent most of your time finding different ways to be out and about soaking in life as if it were going to end tomorrow.A weekend at home would be near catastrophic. In your forties, you will dream of staying home in your pajamas all day and if your lucky, you will have nothing on the calendar to do. Know that one of your best memories with your future husband is when you put the TV in the bedroom and ordered take out for every meal while you had a movie marathon. Crazy but true fact.
If your forty year old self would be able to go back into her twenties she would buy a million mirrors and put them up in the house and walk around naked because the twenty year old me (with all her stupid body issues) had a smoking bod. So stop worrying about stupid stuff. Know that in your forties, you are comfortable enough in your skin to walk around naked in the streets if need be because you know who you are....and have a good lawyer to get you out of jail for indecent exposure. And since we are on the naked topics: DO go back to the lady that scrubbed your boobs down till they glowed in the dark. DON'T go back to the blind masseuse...he wasn't blind.
Nothing you do now will match the joy that will come later in life when you get married and have children. You actually believing that you are not the marrying kind or mother material may have been one of your stupidest thoughts yet. You will not be a famous physician but you will be a good one. And even though you worked so hard for the privilege of people calling you doctor all you will care about is that you have little ones that call you mom.
Your pet peeve of having guys who are clearly a 5 hitting on you will be something fun to look back on. The true crime and new pet peeve will be when your son ( a solid 9) leaves the house without deodorant, brushing his teeth and/or hair, making him turn into a low 3. Why is this so hard to remember?
Your trips to Europe will be replaced with trips to Disney World and the only crepes you will eat for a long time will come from France in Epcot. The horror comes in the fact that you seem to be okay with this.
You will not end up in a mansion on Miami Beach jet setting the globe. You will end up happy instead. I don't want to spoil it for you but there is a good looking guy in there somewhere.
And speaking of guys, you WERE smarter, better, funnier and all around more awesome than any man you ever dated and they didn't deserve you. You will come to this epiphany five minutes after you meet your future husband who you realize is smarter, better, funnier and all around more awesome than you will ever be and hope he will marry you before he figures this all out.
Your life now, as seen through your twenty year old eyes may seem boring and soul sucking at times but trust me, to get here you will have embarked on such a crazy roller coaster of life lessons that will have taught you just what refiner's fire means that you will soon be able to see this with new eyes as the blissful nirvana that you had always dreamed of. My only wish is that I can live in the now long enough to appreciate it.
Wow, that was an incredible, beautiful post. It would make such a wonderful beginning to your book. You know how a lot of authors like to start at the end, and then go back to the beginning? Something to think about as you put together your draft. If you're ever looking for someone to proofread, you have my email!!!
ReplyDeleteYou've made me wonder what I'd write to my 20 year old self. Probably, like you, I'd say my mother was right about everything. Except for one thing. She said as a general rule, good guys don't come in pretty packages. I was happy to find an exception.