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| Me at 16 |
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| Me at 32 |
friends with my younger self... i picture that girl, and i know my face is the same but my heart feels like it's aged a thousand years, and my hands are looking more and more like my mother's: worn for the loving.
i picture that girl in her Value Village clothes, in her bell-bottom jeans and her sixties' hair and flowery shirts. i hear her laugh--it's loud and uninhibited. she's bold and tenacious and daring and ... a bit fickle. but fun.
i pause. sip some wine. think about how 16-year-old me would be shocked at 32-year-old self drinking. i can feel her disappointment from here, and it hurts. because i'm the kind of person with high expectations for myself, and for others, and i don't know if i could be friends with someone like that. someone i would regularly disappoint.
i think i could be her mentor, i tell trent. but she has a lot of growing up to do. i'm not sure i'd have the patience to be her friend.
he nods.
i'd totally be friends with myself, he says. i'd be like, hey, you're cool, want to hang out? want to play some board games?
oh yeah, honey, that's real cool, i say. and we're laughing.
but it's a sober kind of laugh, the kind that acknowledges how far we've come and yet, how long the road.
we lean into each other then.
and one thing hasn't changed. the same guy makes my heart go wild, even after all these years.
***
so here's the thing. i want to know if YOU would hang out with your younger self, and why/why not.
i'm doing a one-time link-up, below. feel free to link up your posts all week, in answer to this question (and yes, we'll still be doing imperfect prose on thursdays; the prompt for that is LIGHT).
you can also just answer in the comments!!!
love, e.
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*linking with Heather, Laura, Michelle, Jen
This question rattles me...but that is good. I need rattling.
ReplyDeleteI think that I was very judgmental when I was 16. I went to church because it was "the right thing to do." I didn't have a reason for believing in Jesus other than that it was a good thing. So no, I might not want to hang out with my former self, unless it were, as you said, as a mentor. I'm a high school teacher now and have a student who is always bragging about going to church and being in FCA but I've gotten after him for dropping the "f bomb" and he's said some really rude/condescending things to me and other female teachers. While I was more sweet and ditzy, I see that same bragging attitude in my former self. I totally thought I was better than other people for being a Christian. And that's one of the only unpleaseant and regretful things about my teenage self. I was a pretty good teenager, compliant and kind, but there was this distasteful hypocrisy about me that I only see now. I think it was very innocent, but no less disconcerting.
ReplyDeletehi hannah! you pretty much described me, here, too, at that age! it's so humbling to look back and realize these things about ourselves, isn't it? btw, i just visited your blog... thank you so much for linking to my post at prodigal last week! and, without sounding condescending, i wanted to let you know that i'm so proud of you for waiting :) bless you friend. e.
DeleteHigh-school Hannah sounds a lot like high-school me, too. What a wonderful, thought-provoking question! I'm not sure I have the patience even NOW to be friends with that old, self-righteous me.
Deleteweird. i never have thought about this. and sometimes nowadays i find myself so critical of the younger set, now that i have arrived and all. ;) i'm not blogging much these days, but if i were, i would totally tackle this. super interesting thought. thanks, emily!
ReplyDeleteoh, i've missed you amy! so good to see your beautiful face here. xo
DeleteI don't know if I could manage to be friends with my younger self, but I would sure love to be able to mentor her a little. To be her big sister. To send a message back in time to tell her that life is going to be so much more wondrous than she ever imagined. I posted a letter to myself-at-sixteen a while back, actually: http://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/2012/05/dear-me.html
ReplyDeleteEm, you and your sweet heart and creative spirit. I love this. I can't wait to tackle it with my pen...odd I find it challenging and emotional even to think about writing it.
ReplyDeletei can't wait to read what you come up with elizabeth! xo
DeleteThanks for this idea. It makes me feel good about myself to remember what a great person I really am. It's amazing how I focus on my strengths in my memory of myself and I often focus on my weaknesses in the present. :)
ReplyDeleteI sometimes answer that when I am (or am not) friends with my daughter. She reminds me of who I *think* I was at her age. Some things annoy me (keeping it real) but others I admire.
ReplyDeleteSo I hope, yes, I would be friends with the 16-year-old me. But that's the 50-year-old me answering. :-)
LOVE this answer lisa :) so honest!
Deleteoh this was a good one...and something I had not thought to think about before!! Hopefully we all can make peace with our younger selves.
ReplyDeleteyes I could. i don't think I've matured very much since 16. Maybe a tad bit more self control and I'm much less boy crazy.
ReplyDeleteOther than that...
I was a party animal at 16, sucking the marrow out of life. I regret a few things but mostly I remember the love of life, the freedom, and the fact that gasoline was 1 dollar a gallon (I could go ANYWHERE!)
i know. i was a party animal too, except that i didn't drink lol... i think you and i would have had a lot of fun together. you need to move closer to me.
DeleteOh oH! And i still adore the same people I was friends with at 16. They are still the most fun, interesting, people I know.
ReplyDeleteexcept for me, of course. :P
DeleteI love starla's words. "making peace with our younger selves."
ReplyDeletethis is the crux of forgiveness that i haven't always done well. it might even be the most important part of growing up, ya know? to grab my 16-year-old self by the shoulders and say to her, "i know you were doing the best you could with what you had."
thanks for this prompt, emily. so rich.
YES. self-forgiveness. self-love. huge to moving on... love you kelli!
DeleteI have thought about this before. I tell me five year old son that he needs to be the kind of boy he would want to be friends with, the kind of person he would depend on.
ReplyDeleteYES. this is what i plan to tell my sons too, as they mature. love this.
DeleteI've been thinking about this throughout the day, em. The thing I keep coming back to is, I think I would feel compassion toward young Nancy. I'd want to walk with her in her awkward lonelieness and encourage her to just be--to stop worrying about what others said/thought about her.
ReplyDeleteAnd this post makes me think there are a lot of young women out there wandering around in their awkward loneliness, trying to make sense of their faith, and just needing someone to keep them company along the way. And love them through it.
compassion. yes. this is what every young person needs. i agree... i so love your heart, nancy. i so love you.
DeleteWow that's thought provoking. I think I would like me. I like my daughter and she is much like me. Actually she is the me I wanted to be. On second thought maybe I wouldn't have been friends with me.....
ReplyDeleteLOL... i love how you thought this through, friend... it's complicated, hey? bless you.
DeleteI would be throughly annoyed with 16 year old me. Because I was so wanting to be the one who everyone would confide in and like. And I was desperate never to disappoint anyone. My question to my friends, daily, was "are you mad at me?" because I was so afraid of losing the ones who I was desperate to love me.
ReplyDeleteUgh. It would be difficult to love the then-me because, unfortunately, there is still a little bit of then-me still in now-me. And isn't it funny, we always dislike the people who portray a bit of what we don't like about ourselves?
My 16 year old self was just starting to fall in love with Jesus. I was searching and reading my Bible, especially the red letters. I wanted to know what Jesus meant and I struggled with what I was reading and what I saw in church. It often didn't match up.
ReplyDeleteI remember writing a letter to Jesus in my Bible when I was 17. It's still there but the thing is when I read it again in my late 20's I didn't know who that girl was. I had stopped reading my Bible. I was at a point in my life I thought I knew enough to be a 'good christian' and I lost touch with God. I still loved him but I was busy with a husband and 3 kids and just going through the motions of being 'a good christian wife and mother.' It was lonely being fake. Because that's what I was when I tried to find my strength in my 'beliefs' instead of in God Himself.
Then I read C.S. Lewis's 'Mere Christianity' and that desire to know more of God came flooding back.
So to answer your question ,yes I would be friends with my 16 year old self who was searching for the Truth. I'm glad I'm back to that point again where I'm just focusing on Jesus and who He is. Trying to understand and live out His red letters. :)
Hmmm. Very thought-provoking. I like your answer, Emily. I needed sooo much mentoring back then. I'll be thinking about this. More.
ReplyDeleteYou ask me Emily if I could or would be friends with my younger me. And I have tried to answer it over and over again, but the words wouldn’t come to me until after I read Sarah’s blog post about sex. And I realize that I can’t really answer your question, because that younger teenage me and this me now well, she and I are still so much the same. In the hiding, shame, guilt, doubt, and weariness. I am still there. Parts of me are even younger still. Those seeds of pain and shame that were sown so early on in my life have only grown deeper rooted. It is only in the last couple of years that I am beginning to tend to myself because I have realized that somewhere under all those weeds of inadequacy and disgust there are also beautiful flowers of strength and importance and worth. So I am digging up roots that don’t dig easily and it is hard work and sometimes I am 3 and sometimes I am 16 and I realize that I have never been my own friend.
ReplyDeleteoh karmen, friend. this is a HUGE realization. a hard one, nonetheless... but good, and i'm praying that you WILL become your own friend. that you will have grace with yourself and realize how incredibly beautiful you are. love you so much. praying for you.
DeleteWhat an intriguing question, Em...my 16 year old self still had a lot of growing up to do and God has a lot of mothering and fathering to do...I would see her trying so hard and feeling so bad as she carried the weight of her parents' anger and disappointment in her versus how people outside her family saw her...The adult me would love and mentor her...give her a safe place to be and become.
ReplyDeleteThanks Emily. I took your thought and ran with it. It seems God is gently pushing me to reflect on where I've come from and where I am today. Two hints in one week gets my butt in the chair for some writing! Love your blog. From your fellow Alberta girl, Sherri-Dawn.
ReplyDeletethanks sherri-dawn! i'm so excited to read what you wrote!
DeleteLight went a different direction than I thought, but love the creative prompt!
ReplyDeletesorry for the confusion sweet kelley... i had two link-ups this week :) love to you. xo
DeleteI know I'm way late, but just had to comment on this one!
ReplyDeleteMy 16yr old self would be HUGELY disappointed and horrified at my current self. You see, I have committed what I then thought to be the worst sin of all - I have left the cult I was brought up in. So my younger self would not be friends with me, she wouldn't talk to or probably even look at me. Weird, but true.
But me, looking back at her? I would love to be friends with her. Funny, brave, determined, questioning, fascinated by people and passionate about God... she doesn't see most of those things as positive qualities yet, at the moment they just get her into more trouble. I would so love to speak hope and peace to her, to be the bolt-hole she needs when life at home gets too much.
I wonder, too, what my future self will make of my current self? Lol... now you've really got me thinking!
Handsfull