A Letter to My Younger Self
Hi Younger Me,
I wish I could sit beside you for a little while. Not to warn you about everything that is coming, because I am not sure I would want you to live your life waiting for something bad to happen. I think I would simply sit with you and tell you that your life is not going to happen exactly the way you imagine it will.
You have plans. You have dreams. You think you have a pretty good idea of who you are and where your life is going. And for a while, many of those pieces will fall into place. You will go to college. You will become a wife and a mother. You will become a teacher. You will build a life that feels familiar and safe and yours.
And then one day, life will change in a way you could never prepare for.
I could tell you about hospitals and doctors, about fear and uncertainty, about waking up and discovering that things you once did without thinking now require effort. I could tell you that there will be moments when you look at your own life and wonder how something so familiar became so unfamiliar.
But if I could truly talk to you, those are not the things I would spend most of my time explaining. I would tell you what I wish you knew about living through them.
First, I would tell you that you do not have to be strong every minute simply because other people think you are strong. There will be days when people admire how far you have come while you are quietly thinking about how far you still wish you could go. Both things can be true. You can be grateful and frustrated. Hopeful and angry. Proud of yourself and exhausted. You do not have to choose one emotion just because it makes your story easier for someone else to understand.
I would tell you to give yourself more grace. You are going to spend too much time comparing yourself to the woman you were before everything changed. You will remember what your body could do, what came easily, and the life you expected to have. Sometimes you will treat that earlier version of yourself as though she is the standard you must somehow reach again.
She isn’t.
She is part of you. She matters. But you do not have to become her again in order for the woman you are now to matter just as much.
I would tell you that grief is not reserved for death. You can grieve abilities, plans, relationships, independence, expectations, and versions of yourself. That grief may return at strange times, even years later. Let it come without convincing yourself that feeling it means you have failed to move forward.
I would also tell you to speak more kindly to your body. There will be times when you are angry with it for what it cannot do. Try to remember what it has carried you through. Progress will not always look dramatic. Sometimes progress will be measured in ordinary things other people never think twice about. Those victories still count.
Emotionally, I would tell you not to hide everything simply because you do not want to burden the people around you. Say when something hurts. Say when you feel left out. Say when you are afraid. Say when you need help. And when someone cannot understand what you are experiencing, do not automatically decide that means your feelings are unreasonable.
I would tell you that loneliness can exist even in a room full of people, and that being loved does not always mean being fully understood. Do not let that convince you that you are invisible.
There will also be relationships that change. Some people will surprise you by staying. Some will surprise you by leaving. Some relationships may never become what you hoped they would be. Love people, but do not measure your worth by how well someone else knows how to love you back.
And I would tell you something else that you probably would not understand yet: pay attention to the ordinary days.
You think the important moments will announce themselves. Most of them do not. They look like conversations, laughter, children playing, a family meal, a drive somewhere, a silly joke, or an afternoon that seems completely forgettable while you are living it. Notice those moments. They become the pieces you reach for later.
You are going to spend years asking why certain things happened. I wish I could give you every answer. I cannot. Even now, I do not have them all. Maybe part of growing older is accepting that some questions stay with us.
But I can tell you this: your story will continue long after the moment when you think everything has fallen apart.
There will be chapters you never planned to write. There will be days when you feel like pieces of the person you used to be, and other days when you recognize yourself again. Eventually, you will begin to understand that perhaps the goal was never to put every piece back exactly where it was.
You will write. You will create. You will find ways to work with children again. You will discover that something meaningful can grow from a life that did not follow the plan. You will learn that an ordinary moment can become a story, and that sometimes creating something hopeful is one way of surviving something hard.
If I could change anything for you, I would not tell you to become tougher. You will become plenty tough.
I would tell you to become gentler with yourself sooner.
Rest when you need to. Ask for help when you need it. Celebrate the small victories. Stop apologizing for the things your body does differently. Let yourself feel what you feel without judging every emotion. Keep people close who make room for the whole version of you—not only the easy pieces.
And when life feels unbearably heavy, look for one small thing that is still good. You do not need to pretend the darkness is not there. Just do not let it convince you that there is no light beside it.
I am writing this to you from Florida, many years and many unexpected chapters later. I am not writing from a perfect ending. There are still things I am figuring out. There are still hard days, questions, losses, frustrations, and pieces of myself I am learning to understand.
But I am still here.
Still loving. Still creating. Still becoming. Still finding reasons to laugh. Still finding wonder in ordinary places. Still learning that hope does not require knowing how the story ends.
So, if I could reach backward through all those years and give you just one thing, it would not be a warning.
It would be permission.
Permission to change. Permission to grieve. Permission to be angry. Permission to be joyful without guilt. Permission to need people. Permission to outgrow old expectations. Permission to love the woman you become, even when she looks different from the woman you thought you would be.
Your life will not always be easy, and it will not always make sense.
But it will still be yours.
And one day, from a place you never expected to be, you will look back at that younger girl and wish you could tell her that a different chapter does not mean the story is over.
With love,
Nicole