Day 3: A letter to my younger self, that I hope one day my daughter will read.

A letter to my younger self, that I hope one day my daughter will read. 

This morning as I wiped chocolate snot off of my daughter’s mouth (she was eating Oreos, don’t judge, yes I do let her eat Oreos for breakfast, she sneezed hence the chocolate snot) I started thinking about my journey to becoming a mother.  Everything leading up to this chocolaty snot moment made me who I am today as a person and as a mother.  Now that I am a mother I think a lot about the advice and many lectures that my mother gave me as a girl and it kills me to say this but I wish I’d listened to her more.  Yes, that’s right, she was right about a lot of things.  If I could go back in time and speak to my young, bratty, pre-teen self I would tell myself three things: 

1.      Your mother is right about a lot, and no Lindsay you don’t know everything.  So be humble and shut up and listen. 

When I was a little girl and people gave any piece of advice my response was always, “I know that.”  This was especially annoying to my grandmother and now I really do understand that it was so annoying and today I’m sorry for being such a know it all.  It’s painful but true, the older you are the more life experience you have, the more you know.  Being humble enough to listen to your elders is difficult for young people and most adults too for that matter.  But you really can learn a lot by just listening. 

2.      All of the things that you want to do in the name of rebellion, or experimentation or just plain old teenage angst really will hurt you and impact you for the rest of your life. 

That party that you want to go to, or all of that beer that you want to try, and the minimal clothing you are sporting; yeah, all of those are bad for you in one way or another.  Bad things will happen at that party, probably as a result of all of that beer you are going to try and tube top just isn’t classy. 

3.      Enjoy the journey, enjoy every moment of it and don’t be in such a rush to grow up.  You will be a big girl one day and you can sleep as late as you want and eat as much chocolate as your heart desires but these younger years will only happen once and the journey is so beautiful.  Newsflash, the destination is actually pretty boring at times.  The youthful, carefree journey is so much more fun.  Not knowing what is ahead of you is actually the best part of the journey. 

This advice is all very cliché; every young woman has heard it a thousand times from a nagging mother; but its cliché because it’s true.  I’m pretty sure my mother told me all of the aforementioned a million times and I just didn’t get it or didn’t want to get it.  I made a lot of mistakes along the way, but I did learn from them as I’m sure my mother and her mother before her did so I hope that my daughter reads this one day listens to just a little bit of it.  This is just hope though, because if she is as hard headed as me (there is already evidence supporting this) she will not listen to a word of it.