When I look at that old photo of me at the Lake Washington sandbox, I see a little girl full of vulnerability, pride, and uncertainty, the same mix of emotions I still feel on some days at 50.
What would you say if you could travel back in time and meet your younger self? I’ve heard this before. I can’t think about the question without getting a lump in my throat.
Would I try to say something to myself to change the past and, ultimately, the future?
Would I warn myself that I will suffer loss, grief, and loneliness?
Would I tell myself I would break hearts and have my heart broken?
Would I warn myself about the mistakes I would make?
I wrote this in 2014. At the time, my mom had sent me a picture of a picture — one of those faded snapshots that feels heavier than it looks. I kept going back to it, almost without realizing why. I would pause, study it, and look at myself as if I were trying to remember something I had forgotten.
The photo was taken at Lake Washington, at the sandbox. If I had to guess, I’m about six or seven. I’m wearing the bikini — the one that felt like a very big deal at the time. I remember the moment clearly. When I first put it on, they held me up in front of the mirror and I cried. I didn’t want to be seen like that. I tried to negotiate, to reason my way into safety. A white t-shirt under the bikini top felt like a fair compromise. Coverage. Protection. A way to soften whatever I already believed was wrong.
When I look back at the picture years later, I realized that I’m standing on the beach wearing the bikini sans t-shirt.
What would I say to my kid self?
Would I tell that little girl not to sit at the window, waiting for that car to come around the corner? Maybe. Would I warn her about the losses, the grief, the loneliness, the ways loving deeply can break your heart and remake it at the same time? I don’t know. I’m not sure she would have listened.
What I do know is this: I would tell her the same thing I tell myself now.
You are going to be OK.
Do your thing.
Don’t wait.
Not for permission.
Not for certainty.
Not for someone else to arrive and tell you it’s time.
Because even then, angry, and embarassed, negotiating for a t-shirt, she was already braver than she knew. After all, she somehow managed to master the stink eye and the duck face at the same moment.