Dear Twenty-Two Year Old Self,

Recently I read emails that you’d sent to friends and I heard your voice once more. The stretchy, sometimes frenetic, quirky self expression as you made attempts at funny word play and at times sexual innuendo nonsense in bids for connection.

How you held closely to this train of creative energy that burst forth, unsure of it, yourself, your world and what direction to take. How the world seemed so big, yet also too small for the amount of energy you had, a constant buzz with an incessant blurring mind that never stopped.

How could you fail with what you did not know? How could you trust skills you did not have to love yourself and to grow in relationship? How could you choose peace when all you knew was how to mask, strive, please, appease and think of others’ needs before yourself? How could you be grounded when all you knew was how to push yourself further into achievement? How could you be still when all you knew was to run or take flight? How could you relax when you were wired into overthinking and rumination held closely to your chest as bedtime stories? How could you find quiet when you only knew how to fix or think harder to problem solve?

Now nearly 25 years later, can you forgive yourself for what you did not know? Can you forgive yourself for your impulsive, narcissistic, self-absorbed, anxious wanderings? Can you forgive yourself for your regrets over treating others badly? Can you forgive yourself for your brashness and being fickle over big and small things? Can you forgive yourself for rash decisions that lead to what if regrets?

As your middle aged self, I can give you that, dear one. 

I can scoop you up in my arms and shower you with the tenderness you craved yet didn’t accept. I can hold your hand and tell you it’s all going to be alright. Not because life is free of challenges or misfortune, but that even in spite of the pain and loss that is being human, you are loved and can express love. How one day you will learn to embrace the peace and quiet, and learn to love being in stillness.

And what a gift that is.

May all beings be happy- in peace and love.