Letter to my 20 year old self

Inspired and challenged by @ericvancewalton's thought provoking post Time Travel 101, this is my attempt. I challenge you to do the same ;)

Dear 20 year old me,

You with your head in the clouds, would you ever in your wildest dreams have imagined the amazing but sadly also the tragic things awaiting you? You certainly would have cowered and never ever thought you could have coped with all of that!

But you somehow found the strength and managed to stay afloat and I must admit I’m quite proud of you.

You with your rose-tinted glasses, which mostly have been a true reflection, met some truly amazing people. Those spectacles sometimes got broken by sadness, many times misted up with joy, and thankfully the rose-tinted ones triumphed more often!

Someone very close warned you to form a hard shell so that people could not hurt you, but that was not in your nature, so there were times when you trusted a little too much, and those spectacles fell all the way from up in the clouds and smashed into hundreds of little pieces on a very hard rocky outcrop.

Your belief that there is good in everyone proved to be true most of the time, as what you gave, jumped right back at you. The hardest nut was often cracked by putting yourself in their shoes, and so you managed to bring the best out in most of the people that crossed your path.

I don’t want you to change any of that!

What would your life have been like had you made a different career choice, as you already met your soul mate and life partner at the age of 20 through a workmate? That’s quite hard to comprehend; so much would not have happened. Indescribable joy would come your way and you will be blessed with two beautiful sons a couple of years later, but I wish you could have known then what I know now.

I wish I could have spared you the heartache of your brother’s suicide eight years later. Don’t be as hard on yourself as I have been, agonising that I could have saved him. There will be another worse tragedy years later, but I cannot tell you about that now.

Laugh more, make time for yourself, go back to playing the piano, go for long walks on the beach, learn the technique of transcendental meditation now, not later; don't be afraid to get out of your comfort zone and try new stuff, read more books instead of falling asleep in front of the television!

Most of all, stop rushing through life and slow down.

I love you and miss your youth and energy, but am happy that I will not make the same mistakes again.

Signed by 63…….oops 64 year old me xxx

Original content by @lizelle
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