Conversations With My Younger Self

I had other plans for this week's post.

I had done my research, had had conversations with some friends, and was ready to jump in on a topic I find fascinating and necessary to speak about here.

But then after an experience that I stumbled into this Saturday, that all changed.

So, the first topic got put on the back burner, and now here I am writing this way later in the week than I anticipated.

I had just finished watching some Ted Talks and decided to go for a drive to find somewhere quiet to park my car and deep dive into my writing for the week.

After a bit of driving, I found myself in the neighborhood of my childhood home.

So I decided to stop across from it, and take a moment there.

Now, I am a deeply nostalgic person.

I wept when the old Spanish Fork swimming pool was torn down.

Every time I move houses it feels like a part of me dies,

and I know that when the old library on main goes, I’ll need a team of support to help me through that grieving process.

I love the new, but I need the old.

So naturally, you’d believe that drives around this neighborhood would be frequent for me.

But they weren’t.

This home held a lot of hurt for me.

This space was where my parents divorced, where a lot of uncertainty, consistent instability, anger, and frustration was frequent.

A space where a great loss of innocence occurred.

I had left this home very suddenly.

After my mom got remarried, we moved to Springville, leaving behind that space.

I remember the last time I was in there, I was Twelve, and had just gotten back from my first Girl's Camp.

I knew that while I was gone, our home was being packed up, and we were planning on finishing up the moving process right when my sister and I got back.

I knew this, but when I returned, all dirty and bruised from spending a week in the woods, the sight of my now empty home was rather jarring.

I remember that no one else was there too.

They were all in Springville settling into our new space.

I remember having to call my mom to come pick us up.

I remember I cried.

Hot tears.

I thought I’d be ready to process this change,

but I wasn’t.

It felt like everything had been taken from me that year, and I was deeply hurt, with little to no control over the situation.

And I held that hurt with me for a long time.

So over time I sort of put all that hurt on that space.

Put all that fear and exhaustion, all that frustration for what I was not in control of onto that space,

let it hold that energy and let it rot.

And sometime between then and now,

I grew up.

I gained control over my life. I wasn’t at the whims of the adults around me.

I moved out on my own terms, I started making my own money, and I got a car, and a life separate from my family.

The stability I had so deeply craved in my adolescence was suddenly an option for me, and I learned how to depend on myself for my needs.

But there was still a lot of unfinished business.

There was still an eleven-year-old who was angry.

And confused.

And hurt.

She was in there still, and she desperately needed an adult to hold her, listen to her, empathize with her, and tell her that everything was going to be ok.

So after stumbling by this old home of mine, I decided that there was a conversation I needed to have, that was long overdue.

I was familiar with the concept of inner child work, a concept that your younger self is still a part of you, and that they deserve healing, but there was something about being near that space that helped me actualize this idea.

I imagined my scrawny eleven-year-old self with bucked teeth and a head that was way too big for the rest of her walking out to converse with me.

When you’re a kid, you feel so so grown up. You don’t know what it’s like to occupy an adult body or mind.

To you, adulthood is nothing more than folklore.

But yet you still believe you’ve got it all figured out.

Or at least that you should.

So imagining this small thing, coming out of that home, and sitting in the passenger seat of my car, I began to understand for the first time, just how young, and blatantly unprepared she was for the years she was about to face, and how overwhelmed she must already be feeling for the things resting on her shoulders.

And so, with great empathy, I began to tell her about the life she was going to have. I told her about the friends she was going to make, about the solace she would find in the theatre.

I told her about the trauma that she would face, about the things that only a select few others know about today.

And as I did, I began to cry, and it felt like in a way, she was crying too.

But through those tears I told her of her resilience, of her grit, I told her of the accomplishments she would achieve, of her inability to give up.

I told her that she began working as an actress and model and writer.

As I spoke about these things, a deep pride washed over me.

So I told her how proud I was of her, that through it all she never let her heart grow cold.

I told her how she fought to get into therapy, that she taught herself about how a traumatized brain works, and how she taught herself how to heal.

I told her that it was going to be a lot of work.

Hard work.

But that she makes it out.

She comes to terms with her sexuality.

She leaves the church.

She finds God in the trees and in the faces of the people she loves.

I told her about the pandemic and all the strange things no one saw coming.

I told her that she learns to ride the waves of life, that she finds her voice, that she becomes brave and strong, and truthful.

I told her that she falls in love, and gets her heart broken,

but comes out of it on top, and never stops learning.

I told her of the deep fear that she will feel.

And of the dark places that she will become familiar with.

But also of the light she will become, a sort of beacon for herself and those in her life.

And at the end of this conversation, after talking through the years, I wanted to hug her. And so I did. I wrapped my arms around my body, and I held her.

I told her that she was safe.

Over and over again, I told her that.

I said it until I believed it.

And I told her that as long as I was around, I would take care of her.

And I sat with that, for quite some time.

And then I decided that enough people had probably seen me sitting in my car, talking to myself and crying that it was probably good to head out of that neighborhood before they were convinced I was crazy.

So I drove back towards my current home, and as I did I passed the snow cone shack I would frequent as a kid.

And so I stopped and got a snow cone.

Cause I was an adult with money, and there was an eleven-year-old still in there, who just had a big cry, and wanted something sweet.

We all have these kids in us, these hurt, frustrated, confused, lost children who are just trying to find their way home. And as we grow up, we are given more tools than we had before.

We learn how to say no, how to walk away, how to set boundaries, and how to cope.

We gain the means to leave relationships that hurt us.

We learn how to save ourselves.

But somewhere deep down, that kid is still in there, scared and alone.

So if you have time this week, check in on them. Learn to listen to them.

Tell them you are proud of them.

Take them out to get ice cream. Watch their favorite Disney movie. Play their favorite song. I promise you, they will thank you.

And I know this journey is long from over for me, I know there will be many more conversations and snow cone runs, but I won’t ignore her anymore. I refuse to be another adult who makes her feel alone.

And one day, I’ll look back, maybe drive up to my old college dorm and have a conversation with my nineteen-year-old self, tell her of everything she will go through, tell her of everything she’s yet to become.

I'll hold her right, tell her of the pain she's going to feel, comfort the anger she's feeling now.

Tell her of the

hope and the

loss and the

joy.

Turn on some Phoebe Bridgers, or Mazzy Star.

Tell her of my many new grand adventures,

and tell her that in the end,

everything is going to be ok.