I wouldn't change a thing about my life, but if I could go back and be her all over again I would. The best I can guess is I was 17 in this picture, fall of my senior year. I had a baby at home, my mother was sick with cancer, and I wish I'd known the value of being a good sister then.
If I could talk to her, I could give her advice that would blow her mind, but she wouldn't take it, she would still make her journey the same way, the hard way.
Suddenly my heart is breaking for her, for me, for so many dreams that didn't come true, for so many things that should never have happened, my mother dying, probably being the shittiest sister that ever lived and every stupid mistake I ever made. Tears are streaming down my face and I can hardly see the screen.
That poor girl didn't have a clue.
I remember her.
This is huge considering there is so much of my life I don't remember, or struggle to remember, or have wiped clean with heavy drug usage and alcohol.
I remember her.
I even remember the boy she liked at the time, talked to him today.
I love her.
My mother was a hair dresser so it was be brave or walk around totally insecure about my hair all the time. I was her favorite guinea pig. I always thought she cut it too short and she would always say, "You are beautiful, not everyone can wear their hair short like you can." I wish I'd understood that, but all my girls had long hair and all I wanted was hair to my butt and it just wasn't happening. Years later a girlfriend told me how cool my hair was back in those days and all I could think I wish I'd realized just how cool. I bugged her so much she really did cut it too short, totally frustrated with me and my demands.
I was a terrible kid, really I was, I'm not just saying that. If she had it, she let me go skating every single night I asked. She bought me shoes I didn't care about, clothes I wouldn't be caught dead in (even though they were probably totally cool), didn't want the others kids knowing we didn't have anything. I was me, I didn't care, I just wanted to skate and have friends and for some boy to like me.
I see her and I wonder where 33 years went. I still feel like her, I still see her in there but alas life has happened, to both of us.
People write songs about talking to their younger self all the time. Knowing me it would be a waste of time to have a little chat with my former self, because she's still me and she's still going to march to the beat of her own drum.
Here come the tears again.
Wow just wow, that's me.
That's me 33 years ago, probably coming up on a birthday just like right now.
I'm turning 50 and I don't have a problem with it whatsoever. There are no buried insecurities, things I wish I could change, no sorrow for another year gone, no depression out of selfish desires to stay young, none of that nonsense.
Let's be for real. I freakin made it to 50!
I love her because she was on her way to being me today. I love her because she was built for this shit! I love her because I love me.
I don't know how others see, God tells me they don't see me the same way I see myself, but I see her and man oh man is she gorgeous and full of life!
She had no clue.
She didn't know the things she would go through, the things she would come out of, or the things she would do. She didn't know the journey that was about to be right in front of her, she didn't have a worry in the world.
As I look at her I realize I really didn't even know myself that well. I didn't know how loved I was, it wasn't cool to love Jesus, so I didn't know how valuable I was or where I would come out on the other side of life turning 50. Fifty to her was old, conjured up horrible images of wrinkles and balding, nothing beautiful and alive could ever be fifty in the mind of a seventeen year old.
I'd had my heart broke already, didn't know how many times that could happen over the years, how I would survive every painful moment. I didn't know the same baby at my grandmother's house while I went to school would be living in my house with his wife and child today. I didn't know what kind of dumbass decisions I would make and suffer consequences for.
I didn't really know anything and my only goal was not to be a high school drop out, to graduate with that baby on my hip.
I didn't know my mother would die, that I would spend much of my life homeless and feeling like a charity case.
I look at her today and I'm so thankful.
I get to be her every day.
I get to love her every day.
I get to see her every day.
She's amazing,
She came all this way with me, thirty three years later.
Every single thing that happened to her, happened to make me the woman I am today.
Every challenge she faced built the warrior God had destined me to be.
When I saw her today miles and miles of memories came to me, ghosts of the past, experiences, a flash back of my former self, no more than a girl. I see her and I love her so very much, because I learned to love me so very much.
He knew me before I was in my mother's womb and His love chased me down all those years, kept me, protected me, waited patiently to be loved back.
I'm so thankful for her.
I'm so glad she came all this way with me and discovered that fifty could be beautiful and alive without all the horror movies.
Out of all the people in the world I got to be her.
I'm so thankful for her and for fifty.
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