A Letter To My Younger Self
Recently I spoke at an event to college juniors and seniors about my career and my life as a female professional in a creative field. The hosts of the events asked me to introduce myself by writing a letter to my past self. I thought, "psh, no problem. I got this. I got 10 years worth of stuff to say."
Then I sat down to try to write it.
I started this letter over and over again, at least six different times. It skewed off in every possible direction: it was serious and sad, it was spoiler-ridden and silly - I went from one end of the spectrum to the other, not really ever landing on what I thought, if given the chance, I would genuinely want to tell the 20-year-old version of myself.
Because how do I explain my life? How do I tell myself to keep going without hiding the fact that it's going to feel impossible at times to do so? How do I articulate the truth of ten years of lessons learned to someone who hasn't experienced a fraction of the living it takes to truly learn those lessons?
And even more so, how would I convince the Eleanor of ten years ago that it was truly me, from the future, telling her these things?
A few days before the event, I scrapped everything I had written and sat down with a blank screen again. I thought to myself, "what if you knew you didn't know anything - what would you tell her then?" And this is what I wrote.
It's a little bit of all of the things, which I think was the best truth I could tell. It's a letter that is simply just a slice of life - with a lot of sassiness in between.
Dear Eleanor,
When I was tasked with writing a letter to you, to be delivered on the day before your graduation from college, it was probably implied that this letter, from ten years in the future, was supposed to be generally optimistic and filled with ‘go get ‘ems’ - or at least a couple ‘it gets betters.’ I was probably supposed to reflect fondly on the last ten years and summarize them in a way that felt encouraging and supportive, maybe even aspirational.
When I was tasked with writing a letter, odds are good I wasn’t supposed to be writing it on a day when I found out I have to pay five hundred bucks for some car part called a Master Switch, on a day when I felt incredibly frustrated with my job - like the ‘what is the point of anything’ kind of frustrated, on a day when I randomly started crying in the middle of a nail salon while getting my eyebrows threaded because all of my trying to be a good something-to-someone had left me with no time to be a good anything-to-myself.
That's right, I probably wasn’t supposed to be writing this letter on a day when my exhaustion had fully manifested in sporadic bouts of public weeping. But here we are, Eleanor of ten years ago. It’s not the version of me that best fits this wonderful occasion that lay before you - but it’s the version of me you’re gonna get.
So, yeah - it’s ten years later and I still don’t know shit about cars. When my mechanic told me that the master switch in my car was starting to go and would need to be replaced - my first question wasn’t about what the master switch did and how essential it was to the functionality of the car or why it cost five hundred dollars - instead I asked, “does it actually look like a switch? That’s weird.” To this, Kevin, the same Kevin that you brought your car to after the radiator cracked somewhere along a desolate stretch of the I-580 your sophomore year, rolled his eyes, sighed, and said, “I'm walking away from you now. You need to order the part.”
And so I said, “Yeah, okay fine.” Because if Kevin says I need it, then I probably need it.
So, okay - there we go: semi-positive piece of advice: find people who support you, people you trust, keep them close, and let them help you. You are never going to be the subject matter expert on everything you need to know to live your life, Eleanor. Take a deep breath and get the hell over that right now. Ask for help when you need it. In your personal life, maybe that’s going to mean deferring to your mechanic’s expertise or asking a friend for help assembling furniture because it’s too heavy for just you. I know you're going to try to do this anyway but you really should ask for help. In your work, it might mean admitting when you don’t know something and asking for clarification or reaching out for support as you navigate through a project that’s never been done before. Just because you’re the person doing the thing, Eleanor, doesn’t mean you have to do it alone.
Ten years of living the dream has taught me this: even where you are now, perched just on the precipice of a college degree, you are already every single thing you'll need to be in order to be successful. You are fiercely competitive, which will drive you through every set back you will encounter, of which there will be many. You’re welcome for that. You are a terribly fast learner, which will serve you far better than being brilliant at any one thing, thank goodness. And you are obnoxiously organized and careful - which apparently can be translated into ‘skills’ for which someone will pay you. Congratulations.
But with all those glowing compliments, I’ll also offer you this caution: life is messy and success is abstract. So you’re welcome to make all the plans and dream all the incredible dreams you want - but know that life isn’t...plannable. Know that you can do EVERY SINGLE THING RIGHT and still fail. Know that sometimes things just fall apart. Success is not a set of universal milestones, it’s not a checklist that gets handed out after gradation, and girl I promise you, it’s not a number in a bank account. Success is relative and more than that it’s a feeling. And it’s changeable. Like today, today I don’t feel successful. I feel like I want to quit my job and go live on a sheep farm because sheep don’t make you cry in public places. Sheep are just cute and dumb and hard to control and kind of smelly and…
Okay, I might have just talked myself out of the sheep farm thing.
It’s ten years down the line and yes, you still have embarrassing meltdowns when you’re overtired and stressed. Girl, you are gonna cry SO MUCH. But that’s okay. It’s okay to cry. A few years ago I learned that scientists studied a bunch of random people’s tears and found that they all contained adrenaline to some extent. I wasn’t part of the study but I can pretty much guarantee you that if someone bottled and sold my tears, it would be like organic Redbull. Which leads me to my last piece of advice: give yourself a break, kid.
Seriously. You know what made me cry today? The lady at the salon pulled a hair from my eyebrow and it made my eyes water and she said, AND I QUOTE, “oh, you’re not strong today.” And then my watery eyes turned to silent, streaming tears because I knew she was right. I wasn’t strong today. Because I’m exhausted. Because I’ve taken on too much. Is that what she meant? NO. She’s from Vietnam and she hasn’t quite mastered some of the nuances of the English language. So what she meant was, “usually this doesn’t make your eyes water but today your skin is sensitive.” But what I heard was, “You pushed too hard and you’re hurting yourself. You made you not strong today.”
And it’s what I heard because it’s what I knew was true.
So take breaks. Stop working when it’s time to stop working and let your brain rest. Slow down. Everyone is always going to tell you they need that thing RIGHT NOW RIGHT AWAY URGENT IMPORTANT SUPER HIGH PRIORITY. You don’t have to bend over backwards to meet other people’s needs. Do what you can, do more if you can, but be unyielding when policing the line between what is possible and what is too much. You are the only one who knows where that line is - so it is your sole responsibility to defend it. And let me be clear: it’s worth defending - YOU are worth defending.
So congratulations on your graduation, go get ‘em and it gets better! Maybe this wasn’t the letter I was supposed to write, but I thought you of all people would appreciate a bit of the truth. The future is far more daunting and chaotic and maddening than you realize - but it’s also not half bad either. Everything is an app now and you’re really emotionally invested in the life and times of Alexander Hamilton. Oh, and I won’t tell you when, but you’ll get to witness the Houston Astros win the World Series and it is DOPE.
The rest of it? Eh, you’ll find out on your own. I can promise you this - it won’t be boring.
Take care and have courage, you’re gonna be great.
Love, E.
