Letters from my future self…

I’ve done a lot of self-help books. It started back around 1995 when I bought The Celestine Prophesy because it looked cool. I’ve started The Artist’s Way more times than I can count, but I never seem to actually get past the week where you’re supposed to take yourself on artist dates. Because I have a lot of excuses about that one. Excuses which would be totally awesome to bust through, but right now those excuses are still stronger than the reasons to bust through them. One book I really enjoyed was How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci. I made it through that one. Side note: when I lived in London I used to go to the National Gallery on my lunch break and look at the Virgin of the Rocks they have. Which could totally be an artist date. So look at that, Julia Cameron.

Anyway, in all of those books, there always seems to be a chapter where you write a letter to yourself from the future. Like 65 year old you is supposed to write a letter to now-you (unless you’re already 65, in which case make it 95 year old you) and you’re supposed to impart all this hard-won wisdom to your younger self.

Which sounds well and good, but the thing about hard won wisdom is that it’s hard won, and 25 year old me hadn’t won any of it yet.

I suspect the whole point of the exercise is to have you write things like, “take risks! You don’t want to be my age and be hanging around in the same house you grew up in, having never seen the world, because you were afraid to leave your hometown.” Or, “live life to the fullest! Because now that I’m 95, I’m sitting here with an afghan on my lap watching QVC, wishing I had lots of memories to look back on.”

I’m not sure that’s exactly how they’re supposed to go, but you get the point.

Anyway, that’s what my letters to myself were, and they served their purpose of getting me up and out of my comfort zone. I moved to Los Angeles. I moved to London. I moved to NYC. I made lots of memories. I moved back to LA. Now I’m writing this from Andalucia. I got married (once) and had a child (once) and had a lot of heartache in there too (lost babies, stupid boys). And so now – with the hard won wisdom I have at 45 (which I suspect isn’t as much as I’ll have at 65, or 85) I can now confidently say that my letter to 25 year old me was missing some key points.

And so, I present the letter that 45 year old Heather *should* have written to 25 year old Heather:

Hey Heather –

I’m writing this to you from Spain. If you’re 25 now, that means you are living in London, and just had that insane birthday party where you went to Heaven under Charing Cross and got incredibly messed up, and didn’t get home until like 5am, and then had a meeting at 9, right? Man, I remember trying to get through that meeting. That was painful. Ah, to be able to go to a meeting still reeking of alcohol, and get through the day unscathed. Those were the days…

Anyway, I’m here to tell you some stuff that you left out in your original letter. You did all the good stuff with moving, and living adventurously, and living life to the full, and I have to tell you, I really appreciate all of that. It’s so much fun to regale people at parties with the story of how you were chase by sheep in Bath, and wound up on a cricket pitch where minor royalty were in the middle of a match. Or when you went to New Zealand with Hannah when she was only 9 months old! I mean, even the move to Spain. You had those two years in there where you were nesting in the house, and you played a lot of Oblivion and Skyrim, and while they weren’t the most productive years of your life (unless you count leveling up in pickpocketing, which is truly fun stuff) you needed that rest.

So basically – when it comes to the whole Living Life to the Fullest area, I’m giving you a solid A+.

Now there are some other small details in life that you haven’t done as well in. I don’t blame you. I didn’t tell you this before. Because I didn’t know it when I wrote the letters. But I do now, so here we go:

• Wear sunscreen. You found your first age spot at 43, and that sucked. It’s right below your right eye, and man, does it hurt to look at it. Get that SPF-50 and slather it on every day.
• On a similar note, moisturize your face like crazy, and start using anti aging creams early. In your 30’s for sure. I wish you had started using retinol when you were 30. But you didn’t, so here we are. I know you get tired and lazy at night, and who wants to wash their face right before they go to sleep, right? But do it. It’s so, so worth it.
• Build up your IRA. Everybody says it, and you heard it, and you even knew it, but you didn’t do it. So stop buying handbags, and put the money into your IRA instead! I’m serious!
• Take care of your knees. Lose the extra weight, and stretch before and after you run! Seriously, knee pain is a bitch.
• Don’t wait so long to start to have a family. Yes, you read about celebrities having kids into their 40’s, and this is possible, but it’s a lot harder, and also, you don’t know how much heartache they may have gone through before they finally had a kid, and if they used IVF (which would be money better spent in your retirement account!). Since you know you want a family, start trying just a couple years earlier. Those years you spent playing Oblivion and leveling up in acrobatics? You can sacrifice them to start a family. Because then maybe you might have been able to have more than one kiddo, and you might not have had all the losses and heartache, PTSD, etc.

But also, no regrets. Life is turning out the way life is turning out, and you’re learning these things when you’re learning them, and that’s all we can do, right? But if I can give you any kind of head start, these are the main things I would leave you with. You’re doing okay, and you’re going to keep doing okay.

Love,
Heather

I wonder what 65 year old me will want to say to 45 year old me? What other hard won wisdom I will have by that point that I don’t have today, and the areas I might be missing out on?