"Note to Self" with Elise Joseph
What advice would you give your younger self?
My close friend, Elise Joseph, recently turned thirty-six years old. To honor her birthday, she asked over ten friends to share what advice they would give their younger selves. One tip she gave me, one I loved, was, “Keep it to a few paragraphs.”
You can read her full post here.
I strongly encourage this exercise. Remember to keep it relatively short.
The advice I would share with my younger self came to me while running at Percy Warner Park, and it is below.
To My Younger Self:
If I could borrow you for an afternoon, I would tell you about three literary works. I would choose literature to keenly highlight how art can and will sustain you. I would promise you there is comfort in the collective experience of love, loss, joy, anguish, and every emotion that makes us wholly human and intimately connected. I would remind you to seek this collective experience. To create it. To share it. To become it.
First, I would tell you about David Whyte’s essay entitled, Friendship. I would belabor the line, “Friendship not only helps us see ourselves through another’s eyes, but can be sustained over the years only with someone who has repeatedly forgiven us for our trespasses as we must find it in ourselves to forgive them in turn.” The process of forgiveness, of a friend or family member, is deeply painful and can hinge on impossible, but it is the only true path to peace. More so, forgiveness of oneself is the ultimate feat, and it is also the ultimate act of self-care and unfailing love.
Next, I would encourage you to visit, and revisit, Wild Geese by Mary Oliver, a poem through which she tells us we “do not have to be good”. You do not have to be good, for crying out loud. You do not have to be good, but you have to be kind. You have to use protection. You have to tell the truth. You must know the difference between empathy and compassion, and you must lean on each when the light of your life or a complete stranger needs one from you. You must know the difference between adoration and desire because you will adore the absolute hell out of life, but you must desire far less than you adore. You must know the difference between curiosity and nosiness. Curiosity will both carry and anchor you; it is as important as love. Nosiness will lead to hurtful gossip and distracting drama that was never your business anyway; it is as important as a pop quiz in seventh grade.
Finally, I would implore you to read Invitation by Kate Baer, a poem through which she reminds us we can “let our life rest on what is already good”. And your life, my dear, will be so damn good. You will not lose a parent before you become one. You will find yourself surrounded by women as strong as wolves and tender as a lily in bloom. You will begin writing young, a practice that will lead you to the truest, most sacred version of yourself, one with which you will mother an extraordinary boy and nourish a lottery-won family. You must always find rest in the holy goodness of your life. It is there, waiting to be honored, waiting to sustain you.