Every year on my birthday I write myself letters in the future - sometimes one, sometimes five, sometimes ten years into the future. Sometimes all three, when I'm ambitious. This year I read the letter from myself at 21, and I had to laugh because little 21 year old me couldn't imagine being this old. So I thought I'd write back, to let 21 year old me know what's going on.
Dear Twenty-One -
Love how you assumed I'd read the birthday letter in the morning, because that used to be the first thing we did in the morning. Now it's not, we got up and got our kiddo dressed, did a while day of mothering, and then we got around to reading the birthday letter at around 10:30 at night. You asked if I remember your birthday, and I do - I remember trying to take the drivers test and failing it and asking them if they would turn my learners permit so that I could get carded for legal drinking. And yes, we're most certainly still in touch with all of the ladies who celebrated with us! Just last weekend we celebrated again with some of them, and were texted by others - they all remember you. We didn't check in with Zach this year but we found a new birthday pal Emma in our MOPS group.
I think you didn't want to make any assumptions about where life would be - when I was you, we knew Ryan already, but were afraid to assume anything about where that relationship would land. Well, 21, I can tell you that it landed us in what's coming up on an eight year marriage, with a two year old son, and a house on a cul-de-sac where we're slowly but surely building a community of friends. Not only that, 21, but you're in school, working your tail off to earn a degree, wondering if you'll be one of the women who flames out or if you'll manage to make it. We made it. We work in the computer science/cyber field still, and are getting to do all kinds of awesome reasearch into what the rise of generative AI might mean for the future. It's absoutely amazing. Like you, I have a hard time imagining what 41 will look like, but I hope that we can look back with as much gratitude as this letter from you has made me feel. Life isn't all peaches and cream (potty training is the worst, and check my most recent to-do list at work as it's quite stressful), but it is mostly very sweet, and made sweeter by sisters bringing nieces into the picture. Auntie life is best life.
You're going to do so much growing and maturing in the next ten years, and all of those elements will be what makes you become me. As hard as some things have been (go read the letter that 26 wrote to 27 just two weeks after dad died, that's a tough one), I wouldn't change the past ten years.
Love, Thirty-One
