A Letter to My Eighteen-Year-Old Self

In my post, "What is Love," I mentioned that the beginning of this year brought some struggles that kept me away from my blog for a while, but said that I would work up to talking about them. A little whisper this morning told me that now was the time, thus this post was born. This is my second "letter to myself" post (see the first one, here). I suppose they come from a place of wishing I knew then what I know now, but these posts help me to consolidate the lessons I have learned and help me to appreciate the growth I have experienced.

Dear Chloe,

My, my, my. You are officially an adult. I suppose that means you know it all now. At least that's what you think. You have nearly two decades of life under your belt. You really have this thing figured out. You try to act that way, at least. But I know better. Deep down, you are terrified. You have no clue what's going on. You're only going to college, but it might as well be Mars. Right now, things are fairly simple. Yes, you had a tough start in life, but things have pretty much leveled off - whether you think so or not. The next few years are about to bring all kinds of new experiences and there are a few things I really need you to know before you head out into the world.

First of and foremost, life is good and God is good. You have a nasty habit of making things out to be worse than they are. You let the littlest things worry you sick. You'll have a lot of little stresses and worries, but you really need to learn to let them go. The world has too many legitimate problems for you to get worried over little things. You will get a "B," in a class, and it's going to be okay. You'll even get kicked out of class. You'll be quite upset over it, but you'll still graduate with honors. (But if you want avoid this mishap, don't text your friend asking if she wants to meet up for lunch. That text can wait.) Those health problems? The good news is, you're not crazy. The bad news, you have endometriosis. I wish I could tell you how that ends, but you're still going to be struggling. Even so, life is good. You will get a job that you love, you will get a cute little black car named Ellie, your heart will be full. Just focus on the 80% that you have. Even when things get tough, life is still good. You have breath in your lungs, the sun rises every morning, coffee is always delicious, and your mama always loves you. It's really not bad at all.

Second, people aren't scary. You live a life that is very afraid of people right now. You don't want to talk to them or meet anybody new. Eventually, you'll get over it (for the most part), but things would be a lot easier for you if you would just get over it now. Either way, you are going to meet new people and it will be amazing. You will make friends, you'll even go on dates. Some of these new people you'll wish you hadn't met. You'll say, "this is why I don't talk to new people." You'll think that it's best to be shy and bitter. But I'll let you in on something, you will move on. You will heal. You will be okay.

To build on to that, listen to your gut. Don't be shy and closed to people, but if you think something isn't right, don't ignore that little tug. You may not have everything figured out yet, but you are brilliant, you have an intuition that can spot red flags from a mile away. Please, for the love of all things sacred and holy, pay attention. You are not crazy. That guy is too good to be true. He does have an anger problem. When you noticed how he treated the waiter so badly, you should have payed attention. He'll treat you that way. When he makes degrading jokes about women followed by "not you of course," it will be you. When you feel like maybe he doesn't respect you, he doesn't. When you feel like he might be getting pushy, he is. When he calls his mom a "stupid bitch," and slams the door so hard he shatters the glass, you will be the next one to get his wrath. When he tells you he loves you but makes you do things and be somebody you don't want to be, he doesn't really love you. You saw the little warning signs, but you ignored them. Because they were little. You notice so much, but you need to use it. If knowledge is power, you have to push down on the peddle. Even the most knowledge won't get you out of a bad situation of you don't put one foot in front of the other and start walking away. You are sweet and you want to believe the best. You want to trust, but some people aren't worthy of your trust and you need to see that.

After all of that, you will need to learn some major lessons in forgiveness. That sweet side of you finds it so easy to forgive others, but make sure you forgive yourself to. You are young and you are learning. You think you need to know everything. Well, you don't. And no one expects you to. Give yourself the same grace and love that you do other people, even when you find yourself somewhere you swore you'd never be.

To sum it up, my goodness, you will grow. You will see sides of yourself and sides of others you didn't know were there. It may be painful sometimes, but overall it will be good. Don't be too scared. Trust God and trust your gut, and everything will be just fine.

Love,
Your Older, Wiser, Still-confused, Still-healing, Still-growing Self