Notes to a Younger Self

This is one of those big birthdays for me, so I’m giving myself the gift of a self-indulgent retrospective post. Basically, just try not to fall asleep.

What I didn’t know at birth:

• These next months will be your best shot at pure experience not intruded upon by thought and language. You’ll spend a lot of time later trying to get back to where you are now.
• This family you were born into isn’t like other families, but they won’t tell you how they’re different. That’s up to you to figure out.
• Although their particular constellation of issues is unique, the family you were born into is, in many ways, just like other families.
• This place you were born in is a house, not a hospital. Being a “home baby” rather than a “hospital baby” will be a major point of pride for you through most of your childhood, even though it actually impresses no one.
• Mom and Dad won’t be together much longer. You won’t remember any of the time they were. This is probably for the best.
• Mom and Dad both, in their own ways, love you. This makes you lucky.
• The first memory you’ll be able to put a definite age and date to is still three years away, with the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989. That memory will involve things shaking and you being entrusted with the carrying of a fish bowl to the front lawn. The cat will later eat the goldfish.
• No matter how much you protest, you’ll eventually be sent off to kindergarten. On your first day there, you’ll meet people you’ll still be in touch with 25 years later using technology that hasn’t been invented yet.
• Grandpa George, your soon-to-be best buddy, will only be around for the first five years. Your clearest sense memory of him will involve the sound of change jingling in a pants pocket. Luckily for you, Grandma will quickly marry another, equally fine, man.

What I didn’t know at 10:

• You’ll have that dog you just got for another 13 years. He’ll be your most steadfast friend through all of them.
• No use measuring yourself against classmates. School creates an illusion of similarity and standardization, but everyone starts with different equipment and leads very different home lives. Just do your best and treat other people well. That’s the biggest lesson you’re supposed to be learning.
• No amount of trying or worrying will insulate you from criticism. Take it easy on yourself. Don’t add unnecessary self-criticism to the mix.
• You’ll be down one more grandparent by the end of your teenage years. You’ll never guess which one.
• Your family will get its first home computer within the next couple years, opening up a wondrous new world called America Online where people you don’t know will constantly ask “a/s/l?” Despite the intrusions, you’ll find new avenues of self-expression online.
• Know how all your worries fade away when you pick up a Boxcar Children or Hardy Boys book? The reading material might change, but the feeling never does. And contrary to whatever reservations you harbor about the uncoolness of burying oneself in books, that’s a good thing.
• If someone has a problem with you, it’s most likely his problem and no reflection on you. What could you have done to deserve any ill will? You’re 10. People who are okay with themselves don’t intentionally make a kid’s life more difficult.
• As a kid, an adult’s reaction to your card trick usually says more about the adult than the card trick.
• No matter what anyone tells you, you’re not “too sensitive.”
• Know how your big brothers seem so much older than you? They’re 13 and 14. This is not, in the grand scheme of things, very old. They’re just finding their way, too.
• Achievement isn’t everything. You don’t have to do more to be enough.

What I didn’t know at 20:

• The dog will only be around for three more years, and most of the last year will be a slow fade. Enjoy every remaining game of fetch.
• That cat your mom just got will live another nine years. She’ll be your most steadfast frenemy through all of them.
• Your first niece, currently percolating in your sister-in-law’s stomach, will be awesome. The same will be true of your second niece.
• Sam, Grandpa George’s successor, will only be around for another year or so. If you want to ask or tell him anything, act quickly.
• You may think your family is dysfunctional enough now, but you’ll discover whole new levels of dysfunction in the next decade. Ultimately, the experience will be good for you. But brace yourself.
• There’s no such thing as a “typical” college experience you need to feel bad about missing out on. You’re having the experience you can handle. If that means staying in your room when you could be out doing things, it is what it is.
• Know how everyone proceeds directly from high school to college to climbing the career ladder of success? That doesn’t happen for everyone. And you have stuff you need to work out before it can happen for you. It’ll take a while.
• Hidden on the basement floor of the university library, there’s a whole row of books about country music you haven’t discovered yet. After finding them, you’ll figure out a way to make your senior project about Merle Haggard. Then you’ll start a blog about country music, which will (rather inexplicably) be of interest to thousands of people you don’t know.
• Keep writing. Not just for assignments or toward particular projects. For fun. For self-discovery. For getting more of what’s in your head into a form that can interact with and be acted upon by the world. Even when it leads nowhere in particular, it’s important.
• Achievement isn’t everything. You don’t have to do more to be enough.

What I don’t know at 30:

• Everything else

Play me out, Merle.

https://youtu.be/IADZ9Y6CTWQ