Letters to myself
Cleaning out my computer storage yesterday, I found my blog files from a decade ago from my now defunct website.
Of course, being the efficient person I am, I stopped and read through all of them. Some were like I was reading them for the first time. I didn’t even remember a few. This past decade so much has happened that I sometimes feel like a different person. Experience had transformed my life in many ways.
But a funny thing happened to me afterward reading those old posts, I felt happy and hopeful, Like I had found a treasure trove written to my future self. For this moment in time.
Remembering and getting a glimpse back when kids were in marching band, spending time with my parents, painting, writing, trips, teaching, and being filled up with it all. I saw a woman who was balancing so many things, some very hard things, and doing a pretty good job even though she didn’t know it. I wasn’t then, but I am proud of that person now.
A decade later, my parents are gone, my kids have their own lives; intellectually, all things you expect. In your heart its a foreign landscape that shocks you and realigns everything.
The old writings reflected me, but different. A me before entering the middle age rock tumbler, unaware of everything that must be knocked off, smoothed and shined up. Coming through the changes and losses are not easy or simple, seeing yourself without those things that defined your sense of self is scary, and freeing. The result is that you begin to discover the essence of who you truly are, what matters, how brave and strong and beautifully you were created to be. Transformation, even at this late age. And I think of Sarah, laughing at the thought of new life within her, hope for the future, far different from anything she had imagined, things she had given up on long ago. It’s never too late for God to heal and love and give us a future and a hope.
I have had difficulty in my life listening to and trusting my instinct, many times letting the voices of others drown it out. The letters I wrote to myself without knowing it reinforced to me that it is time to listen to and trust my voice, not the time to dim my light. A reminder that if anything, it’s time to shine brighter.
