And always remember to wear sunscreen
To Erin (age 24)
This morning you are trying on your graduation dress and freaking out about being a size 6 instead of a size 4. Just like you did when you went from size 2 to 4 and from size 0 to 2. I wish I could convince you to save yourself the trouble and tell you it's a waste of time. First of all, you're still too thin. You can't see that now, but someday you'll look back on the pictures taken today and you will. Second of all, it's going to get so much worse. You're about to embark on a weight battle that will see you reach 250 lbs. You will come back from that, too, and one day you'll be normal. And one day you'll be able to look in the mirror and see 'normal' instead of 'fat'. And you'll wish you'd been able to see it back when you were normal the first time, before you let yourself get this thin.
That guy you're with is a total douchebag. He's not malicious, he's just clinically narcissistic, in that he is incapable of envisioning a world that does not revolve around him. He's arrogant and self-centered and he's just not able to appreciate you. But it's not because of you, it's because he's so busy appreciating himself. All of your friends see it - and so did your mother the minute she met him, but they're all humoring you because they know you won't make the mistake of marrying him. You will try long distance but it will slowly fizzle out when he realizes that it's harder to bask in his own superiority when you're not there every day to remind him of the ways you don't measure up. And the more time away you get, the more you will realize the ways in which you do. He'll eventually take a career that gets him all of the fawning admirers he needs to feed his ego, but thankfully you will not be one of them.
You haven't spoken to your Dad in over two months because he forgot your birthday. You should get over yourself even though he's not going to remember to call you today either. Call him. He really is sick and none of you know how bad yet, but you only have a matter of months before he stops being able to remember you at all. Please talk to him now while you still can. And stop being so angry at him because it's not his fault.
You're really patting yourself on the back for graduating so young. You shouldn't. It was a mistake sacrificing everything just to get here on an artificial timeline. Ten years from now you won't regret it, necessarily, but you'll wish that you had taken more time. You'll wish you went to Paris after college when you were still so fluent you dreamt in French. You know that now, even, but you're too distracted to see it - or that it's not too late.
You worked that hard, though, and started this journey because you wanted to be Atticus Finch. You're thinking about that even today, and about your choice to go in the other direction. You're scared, having spent a year as a baby Public Defender, that you're not strong enough, emotionally, to do criminal defense day in and day out, and so you're taking the easier choice and the bigger paycheck. What you don't know is that you are strong enough. And the choice you are making is not the easy road. You are taking a job that will eat away a part of your soul.
Right now you live to work, and in some ways always have, but you will get worse. You'll soon start a job in an environment where the sole measure of your worth will be how much more you can sacrifice for work and how much more of yourself you will give. And because this is how you measure your own worth, you will keep sacrificing until is almost breaks you. You'll spend years in a life that revolves around work until, one day, you'll wake up and start working to live instead of the other way around. And believe me, it'll be worth the wait because in so many ways, the day you make that decision is when your life will really begin.
You will travel around the world, literally, to live in the tiniest country no one has ever heard of. There, you will have some of your greatest professional achievements. You will recapture your inner Atticus Finch. More than that, you will reclaim your life and start living it. You will learn what it feels like to be hooked into a reef at 70 feet and watch sharks and devil rays swim right before your eyes. You will see the Golden Palace in Bangkok and fight against the hordes of pedestrians on the crowded streets of Manila. You will photograph the famous orchid gardens outside Nadi, Fiji, and you will swim with whales in Tonga. You will never be rich in dollars, but you will finally learn what it means to be rich in the ways that count.
You see today as an end. And as a beginning. But you do not see it as a now, which you should. And revel in it.
Oh, and the best decision you will make today will be to take off your dress and graduate semi nude under your velvet gown. It is going to be seriously hot and you and Carol will be the only ones at all the graduation parties without pit stains. Besides, no one will notice. Except your mother....
Love,
Erin (age 34)
This morning you are trying on your graduation dress and freaking out about being a size 6 instead of a size 4. Just like you did when you went from size 2 to 4 and from size 0 to 2. I wish I could convince you to save yourself the trouble and tell you it's a waste of time. First of all, you're still too thin. You can't see that now, but someday you'll look back on the pictures taken today and you will. Second of all, it's going to get so much worse. You're about to embark on a weight battle that will see you reach 250 lbs. You will come back from that, too, and one day you'll be normal. And one day you'll be able to look in the mirror and see 'normal' instead of 'fat'. And you'll wish you'd been able to see it back when you were normal the first time, before you let yourself get this thin.
That guy you're with is a total douchebag. He's not malicious, he's just clinically narcissistic, in that he is incapable of envisioning a world that does not revolve around him. He's arrogant and self-centered and he's just not able to appreciate you. But it's not because of you, it's because he's so busy appreciating himself. All of your friends see it - and so did your mother the minute she met him, but they're all humoring you because they know you won't make the mistake of marrying him. You will try long distance but it will slowly fizzle out when he realizes that it's harder to bask in his own superiority when you're not there every day to remind him of the ways you don't measure up. And the more time away you get, the more you will realize the ways in which you do. He'll eventually take a career that gets him all of the fawning admirers he needs to feed his ego, but thankfully you will not be one of them.
You haven't spoken to your Dad in over two months because he forgot your birthday. You should get over yourself even though he's not going to remember to call you today either. Call him. He really is sick and none of you know how bad yet, but you only have a matter of months before he stops being able to remember you at all. Please talk to him now while you still can. And stop being so angry at him because it's not his fault.
You're really patting yourself on the back for graduating so young. You shouldn't. It was a mistake sacrificing everything just to get here on an artificial timeline. Ten years from now you won't regret it, necessarily, but you'll wish that you had taken more time. You'll wish you went to Paris after college when you were still so fluent you dreamt in French. You know that now, even, but you're too distracted to see it - or that it's not too late.
You worked that hard, though, and started this journey because you wanted to be Atticus Finch. You're thinking about that even today, and about your choice to go in the other direction. You're scared, having spent a year as a baby Public Defender, that you're not strong enough, emotionally, to do criminal defense day in and day out, and so you're taking the easier choice and the bigger paycheck. What you don't know is that you are strong enough. And the choice you are making is not the easy road. You are taking a job that will eat away a part of your soul.
Right now you live to work, and in some ways always have, but you will get worse. You'll soon start a job in an environment where the sole measure of your worth will be how much more you can sacrifice for work and how much more of yourself you will give. And because this is how you measure your own worth, you will keep sacrificing until is almost breaks you. You'll spend years in a life that revolves around work until, one day, you'll wake up and start working to live instead of the other way around. And believe me, it'll be worth the wait because in so many ways, the day you make that decision is when your life will really begin.
You will travel around the world, literally, to live in the tiniest country no one has ever heard of. There, you will have some of your greatest professional achievements. You will recapture your inner Atticus Finch. More than that, you will reclaim your life and start living it. You will learn what it feels like to be hooked into a reef at 70 feet and watch sharks and devil rays swim right before your eyes. You will see the Golden Palace in Bangkok and fight against the hordes of pedestrians on the crowded streets of Manila. You will photograph the famous orchid gardens outside Nadi, Fiji, and you will swim with whales in Tonga. You will never be rich in dollars, but you will finally learn what it means to be rich in the ways that count.
You see today as an end. And as a beginning. But you do not see it as a now, which you should. And revel in it.
Oh, and the best decision you will make today will be to take off your dress and graduate semi nude under your velvet gown. It is going to be seriously hot and you and Carol will be the only ones at all the graduation parties without pit stains. Besides, no one will notice. Except your mother....
Love,
Erin (age 34)
posted by E. at
10:01 PM
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