Letter to My Younger Self

 
As you get older, your character will develop, you will grow, you will adapt to the world around you, you will see things that amaze you, things that haunt you, things that scare you, and things that excite you.  Accept the setbacks, embrace the advances, and work to change the rest. 
 
You will see buildings fall and monuments rise, friendships develop and relationships fail, planes crash and dreams take flight.  Don't allow human cruelty--however large--to poison you, but do allow the gift of human kindness--however small--to change you. 
 
There may be a time when the music is wrong and you're wearing the wrong shoes and you want to sit one out.  Dance anyway. 
 
Learn the difference between giving up and moving on.  Moving on is always okay; giving up never is. 
 
There may be times when you feel shy.  There may be times when you feel self-conscious.   There will be times when it is easy to remain silent.  Speak up anyway, and be grateful you have a voice.
 
Don't let challenges over power you.  Instead, allow them to become empowering.
 
Girls in high school, models in magazines, women in the media--these people will never be portrayed as nice.  Nice guys finish last.  Be nice anyway.
 
The adage is, times will change.  So will you.  But stop every now and then and to take stock.  Remember, there's also an adage not all change is good.  Make sure you're evolving as well. 
 
And finally, whenever you get the chance, eat dessert first.

Good Night

“I need help! I neeeeed heeeeelp!” I’d wanted my voice to reverberate down the hall, but instead I sounded like a croaking duck.

“What is wrong with you?” my mother asked from my doorway a few seconds later. I attempted to look up from where I was face down on my bed under a mass of blankets. The effort was pointless though—the room was dark, only silhouetted by a single streetlamp across the street and on the corner.

“I need help. Look at my sheet!” The yellow and blue plaid cotton sheet was twisted around my calves and ankles, providing a makeshift straitjacket for my legs. “I can’t move and I’m sooo tired!”

“Okay, I’m turning on the light so prepare yourself. This is what happens when you only get four hours of sleep and then work all day.” She untangled the sheet and tucked it expertly under my mattress at the end of the bed while I lay comatose, made inert by exhaustion and frustration. Her movements were quick suggesting years of experience.

“There you go.” As she pulled the comforter up over my shoulder, I immediately felt better even though the July weather was much too hot for comforters. I heard her begin to move out. I snuggled down under the protective cover of darkness, then began to wail.

“Wait! Waaait! Now my pajama leg is all funny, and I can’t fix it.”

She didn’t even complain as she pushed the blankets out of the way, grabbed the green and white squared fabric bunched around my knee and gave it a yank down. “That’s why I have to wear socks pulled up over my pajamas bottoms in the winter.”

I wanted to ask ‘why only in the winter?’ but she was fixing the covers around me once again and I was distracted by familiar stirrings of childhood. My eyes wouldn’t open and it was too much effort to use my vocal cords.

“Good night,” came the almost-businesslike adieu from my childhood. I half-smiled as I turned my face back into the pillow, a favored position I had long ago outgrown. The light went out, and cozy in bed with the comforter weighing just the perfect amount, I picked my head up to listen to her sandals flip-flopping all the way down the hall until they were too far away to hear. Then, satisfied, I burrowed into my pillow and snuggled deeper in the memory.

If

by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master,
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same,
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start at your beginnings again,
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after hey are gone,
and so bold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
if you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds worth of distance run
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

On Faith

I remember attending church through most of my early childhood. Then, somewhere in my upper elementary school years, we stopped going so regularly. My mother blames this on my father. “I never missed church until I married your dad,” she often points out, as if this is conclusive. After all, he never missed church until he married her.

Both my parents were raised in fairly strict Catholic homes. My father’s parents were Irish-Catholic, and had the seven children to prove it. So far as anyone knows, they never missed mass. Ever. For my mother, church was more of a social event. You went, you socialized, you went home. Of course, because she went to a Catholic school, nearly all her friends were Catholic.

“Yeah,” my mom counters, “but I never even thought about missing until then.” I find this hard to believe. As a child, sitting and kneeling on the pews in your dress with your itchy tights, thinking about the glazed doughnut you were promised by your father on the condition that you are good, or at least quiet for Pete’s sake, and generally thinking of the 99 other places you’d rather be instead of in church is like a Rite of Passage. Baptism, Reconciliation, First Communion, Dreading Mass.

Regardless of our church attendance dropping off, my siblings and I still went through Confirmation. My parents got me through by insisting once I was confirmed I could stop going to catechism. For the six months it took me and the rest of my catechism class to prepare, I got myself through it by imagining what I’d do with my free Thursday nights after this was over. Oh, and playing tic-tac-toe with myself during class.

When the time came for, well, what I can only call my pop quiz with priest, I failed miserably. I thought the questions were going to be about me and my spirituality, in which case I would have passed with flying colors (although shy, I’ve always believed one of my greatest talents is coming up with crowd-pleasing, diplomatic answers in a very short amount of time. I would have wowed them had I ever decided to enter in the Miss America contest). The test, however, was over Jesus and the history of Christianity (where do they get this stuff?) “I’m not very good at geography,” I said weakly to the priest as I struggled to come up with some proper nouns. “Jerusalem? Jordan? Syria? Oh, oh, I know! The Red Sea! The Nile?”

The aspect of confirmation I enjoyed the most was picking out my saint name. I was instructed to pick a saint that I felt an affinity to, someone I felt could guide me on my way to becoming the fully-realized Catholic the church wanted me to become. My mother had chosen Saint Theresa. “How did you choose that?” “I had always loved the story about it rained roses when she died.” I was transfixed for days by that beautiful image. Was that one of the miracles that occurred after she was dead that helped her achieve sainthood? I wondered. I wonder if that counts for a miracle. If I were in charge, I would definitely count that as one of her miracles. Who doesn’t want it to rain roses? And how could anyone compete with raining roses?

In the end, I went patriotic. I chose Elizabeth Seton, the first American saint. At my confirmation, the priest didn’t read the “Seton” part, so I ended up with just Elizabeth, along with seven other girls. I was upset because although John’s mother was impressive, she was not the one I had chosen. I had felt an affinity to Elizabeth Seton, and besides, and now I had betrayed her and looked unoriginal.

Once I was confirmed, I gave myself more freedom to explore my feelings on religion and Catholicism. I was able to mesh what the Bible said and what I had been brought up to believe with my own feelings—no, I would think importantly, My Morals. What I eventually came up with was—prepare yourselves for this—the Bible was written by men, not God, and men are fallible. The Bible could be wrong, and at the very least, it’s archaic. To believe that thought hasn’t evolved in thousands of years is also archaic. (Even after my confirmation, it took years to squelch down the inner Catholic in me who wanted to cross herself and pray to God to not punish her for blaspheme.)

From this I created the Benevolent God (though the title didn’t come until later when I read it in a book. After recognizing my own personal beliefs fell under this title of Benevolent God, I felt they were validated. They had merit. My benevolent God must be the truth!) The benevolent God ignored the fact that I didn’t go to church. He ignored that I only said prayers occasionally. He overlooked these things and He loved me anyway because I was good (usually) and kind (mostly).

While in college, I took a class called Modern British Heresies. We discussed a lot of different ways to commit blasphemy and what constituted a heresy. I began thanking God nightly that I didn’t live in 18th century Britain where my benevolent God may have been considered blasphemous. Yup, good thing I lived now, in the 21st century, where I could have a clear conscience about the whole thing. … Right?

We discussed many of the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism. Although my teacher never specifically said so, I believe he was Protestant, and I devoted more time to developing a theory on why than I did on the homework I was supposed to be doing for class. “If you are a Protestant, to please your God, you have to live a long and hard life. You have to work all the time, and you have to work hard. You have to think pure, clean thoughts, and you don’t get to take lazy days. If you’re Catholic, you can do whatever you want, so long as you’re sorry at the end, and make a confession. Want to drink? Sleep around? Become a thief? Go for it! Just make sure you are absolved for your sins before you die!” We all laughed, and I considered that what he said had some real merit to it. Except for one thing.

He had not taken into consideration Catholic guilt.

Here’s the thing with Catholic guilt: it does not matter how religious you are. It does not matter how much a part of your life Catholicism is. If Catholicism has ever entered your home, the guilt will be there forever. It’s the Energizer Bunny; it keeps going and going and going. Always. So far as I know, it affects each person differently. I mainly experience guilt over the way I treat others. Despite the fact that I am always courteous and as a rule nice, I can experience guilt for days over how I think the other person perceived me. Did he think I meant that in a mean way? Did she think I was trying to get away from her when I said I was busy? Did I hurt their feelings?

I also experience (lesser) guilt over church-related things: spacing off in Mass, not going to Mass, cheating during Lent, taking the Lord’s name in vain and then rationalizing it by saying who doesn’t? , not always feeling 100% sorry for my sins. Luckily, I don’t usually feel guilty about lying because if I did the guilt would be doubled: (1) because I lied and (2) because I’m really good at it. Long after the religious tendencies go, the guilt remains.

If Protestants are earning their way into heaven through hard labor and strong work ethic, Catholics are getting there through the guilt time they put in. If life is a roller coaster, the fluorescent-painted seats, chugging up hills in anticipation and zooming down them with exhilaration, the delicious spray of water at the bottom, the blue sky whirling by, the indistinguishable faces swirling past—this is the fun part. Standing in line before the ride with four hundred other sweating, cranky people for three hours with the heat and humidity index at 95 while around you debate the merits of admitting defeat and getting out of line versus holding your ground while convincing yourself it can’t possibly be much longer—this is the Catholic guilt that accompanies. You can’t have the ride without the line … at least if you’re Catholic. And while the ride is fun, it’s over in a blur. The line is long and the waiting is interminable. And just when you think it’s over, you turn a corner and realize you’re only half there. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.



I think back to my childhood and how I constantly asked my parents about God. “How do you know He’s there? How do you know he’s real?” And their response, “Because you have faith.” “Where do you get faith? How do you get it?” I don’t remember their responses, but I know how I will respond if my children ever ask me.

Despite my questions, how debilitating the guilt can be, the annoyance at stereotypes, and the differences between what I was brought up to believe and what I actually believe, I don’t question my faith. When I’m scared or overwhelmed, I say a Hail Mary. When I hear sirens signaling an accident or ambulance, I want to cross myself. When I lose something, I ask Saint Anthony for a minute of his time and I’m usually not disappointed.

“Where do you get faith? How do you get it?”



I was eight years old. I know I was eight because Nicole and I were good enough swimmers to go off the regular diving board, but still too scared to try the high board. I know that Nicole had said something to make me mad. I don’t remember what it was, but our friendship has always been like that. We make each other mad, we have fights, and then, if possible, we never talk about it again. We like it that way. I watched as she trotted across the cement deck of the pool from the deep end back to where our moms stood in the baby pool, cooling their feet and ankles while watching our youngest siblings. Boy, was I seething! Well, I’ll show you, I thought darkly as I watched her help herself to a juice box.

I approached the high dive. There was quite a line which, I thought, will give me time to decide what I want to do. Some loud boys got in line behind me. They were pushing and shoving and laughing at each other. I edged forward away from them. I wasn’t sure I had the guts to get out of line now.

Across the pool I could see my mom and Nicole’s mom talking and laughing. Weston and Tara were … what were they doing? Oh. Pretending to be dogs. Naturally.

“Go! Go!” someone said behind me, pushing me onto the first stair. I climbed up to the top, but it wasn’t my turn yet. The girl in front of me was waiting for the boy in front of her to get to the ladder down in the water before she went. One bounce and she was gone. I listened for her splash. Where was it, where was it, where was it? Splash!! Oy, that took an awfully long time for her to get to the water!

My heart began hammering around unsteadily in my chest. I could hear myself laboring to breathe. Remember in Romancing the Stone when Michael Douglas dives off the side of a castle? That’s what this is, I told myself. Just take three steps. Step, step, step, JUMP!! It will be so simple. Fast and easy. I took my first hesitant step onto the board, positioned between the two handrails. The board was still wobbling up and down from the last girl’s jump. I looked up as I waited for it to become more stable.

Please don't make me go, please don't make me go!

I’d lost Tara and Weston in the crowd and I couldn’t find Nicole either. My mom and her mom were still chatting. In fact, no one had noticed that I was about to embark on what I could only think of One Giant Mistake. Why wasn't my mother's intuition screaming, "WAKE UP, WAKE UP!"?? Why wasn't Nicole watching? This was supposed to be all for her anyway! ... But to honest, the only person I was mad at was myself. Mad, and scared, and nearly hysterical.

Please don't make me go, please don't make me go!

The board had stabilized. I took one timid step. Big mistake. The board began wobbling all over the place. I looked down. I was still over cement. I needed to move out so that if I accidentally fell off, I would at least land in water and have a CHANCE at surviving. One more step, and now the handrails were gone. Tears began to swim in my eyes. Ordinarily, I'm all for crying. I'm a very good crier. But right now, they were hindering my ability to see. How was I supposed to make it to the end of the board with no visibility and a board that's just rearing to buck me off? I gazed wildly around, hoping for something to save me.

Please don't make me go, please don't make me go!

Over the water, the sun was intensified and I could barely keep my eyes open. Vaguely, I heard a whistle sound. One more step out, more pausing as the board shook and vibrated. Maybe it was this unsteady because it was about to fall off. I imagined going down with the board. Better to just get to the end, jump fast, and hope it doesn’t go with me. The slower I take, the better chance there is of this thing falling off and killing me.

Time seemed to slow down and background noises faded. This feels just like a movie, I thought bordering somewhere between hysteria and numbness. More whistling, this time accompanied by shouts.

“Hey!! Hey! Get OFF the board!”

Vaguely, I became aware that the lifeguard was yelling at someone. The lifeguard … was yelling … at me. At me! “Hey! Get off the board!” She gestured largely to the kids diving off the sides, then tapped her watch. “The board’s closed now. You’ll have to wait till later to jump.”

I nodded numbly, and swiveled, grabbing onto the handrail for support as I made my way down. The boys behind me had long ago left realizing they weren’t going to get to go off the board for at least fifteen more minutes until the board opened up again. I scrambled down the stairs sucking the air in deep gulps and releasing it with sighs of relief.



Years later, I remember the walk out across that diving board like it happened ten minutes. But I don't remember the terror I felt; it lost its edge years ago. I don't remember the exact color of my relief or exactly what I did after I got down the stairs. But I do remember thinking about guardian angels.

And no matter how much someone could talk about coincidences and timing, I will never be convinced otherwise. Anyone could have been stopped from going off. But it was me. Probably the youngest and most frightened and least anxious to go. I was the one who had stopped. And as I watched my red painted toenails as they flew down those stairs, I remember raising my head and thinking, "Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God," over and over until the terror ebbed and faded into just another childhood experience, unordinary from any other.