One day, while rummaging in the attic I uncovered a letter addressed to me, Once opened I saw it had been written by my 17-year-old self.
Dear future self in all our stages and ages to come,
These words took my breath away, and swept me back in time.
Overall I want to say please make sure we live the best life possible. Always love us fiercely and with care. I have taken care of us thus far we are feeling good about life.
I am 17 and still a virgin. I have a lot of questions about boys, the do's and the don'ts and the whole dating thing. I need you to guide me forward with wisdom and let me feel you close by as I proceed with cautious curiosity about dating.
Yes Mom is still here, loving me much, yet I don't know how to bring up the date thing with her. I have thoughts I don't feel comfortable sharing with her. But I know I can share everything with you...myself.
Ok, next I want to mention that I like school, my favorite subject is biology. I am learning so much about science from dissecting frogs to being able to identify the different types of Oak trees in the schoolyard.
I am battling with accounting, I'm making a lot of D's. I'm thinking about dropping the course, but if I do it will end my plan to graduate a year early, as a Junior this coming May. So I am trying to stay the course.
And last but not least I love my drama class and my school plays I have acted in all of them. This is something I am good at.
Ok moving right along, Sometimes I get lonely. I don't have the' best friend' relationships that a lot of teens have. I don't know why. Maybe in the future you can find us some good long lasting friends. We don't want to grow old alone.
So far we love music, all kinds of music. I fill in the lonely hours by listening to the radio. And when our favorite songs come on I sing.
This is my most favorite song of the month. As I write the words to some of the verses, I will also sing it to you. I hope you like it:
I learned the truth at seventeen
That love was meant for beauty queens
And high school girls with clear-skin smiles
Who married young and then retired.
The valentines I never knew.
The Friday night charades of you,
Were spent on one more beautiful At seventeen I learned the truth.
And those of us with ravaged faces
Lacking in the social graces
Desperately remained at home.
Inventing lovers on the phone.
Who called to say come dance with me.
And uttered vague obscenities.
It isn’t all it seems At Seventeen.
To those of us who knew the pain
Of Valentines that never came.
And those whose names were never called
When choosing sides for basketball.
It was long ago and far away.
And the world was younger than today
When dreams were all they gave for free.
To ugly duckling girls like me.....
Oh yes and at this age, we sing and dance a lot. Your 17 yr old self is perfectly healthy.
I don't eat a lot of food, but the foods that I like the most will bring me to the table fast. You remember mamas fried chicken and her macaroni and cheese. And her apple turnovers.
Also, I would like us to travel, I want to go many places in the U.S. and I want to go to London, Canada, and Sweden. Renee, I want us to create a life where we are happy with no regrets. And I want us to live in a big beautiful house. Please never let our dreams die.
I will start the process now while we are still young so we can have many years to prepare for the life we want.
As far a career; I don't know what I want to be at this time. There are so many choices. But I do want to be rich. So in the coming years please help me to decide what our profession will be.
Will write again in the years to come. I am going to go now. I’m getting ready to polish our fingers and toes to make us all pretty. Please help us to stay pretty, after all, we are girly girls. I love you always.
To my present self I returned, in full awareness of who I am now and where I am. And the many journeys I had taken to arrive in the present.
I held on to the last lines of the letter, I did not want it to end.
The tears would not quit falling as I remembered my 17yr. old self. I remember the day I wrote this letter. I was full of vibrant energy and anticipation of embracing all that the world had to offer me.
I wept deeply because I felt that I did not know that 17-year-old girl anymore. We had become strangers.
And as I thought about my life all these years later I could see that along the way I stopped dreaming.
I don’t sing as much or dance as often.
And the rich life she wanted and all the traveling is yet to be realized. And I wondered were both of these too far out of reach now.
I feel much regret and sadness because I let the younger me down. I pondered through tears still falling, How do I get the resilient, carefree, energetic version of me back, and how do I make her dreams, our dreams come true?
I sat in the attic that day all alone for hours, holding tight the letter from my younger self. I had sunk into a deep sadness as I drifted off to sleep.
The silence that had allowed me to slip off into a deep slumber was interrupted by music, a song I hadn’t heard in many years. It was coming from downstairs.
As I jumped up and hurried down from the attic I thought, ‘I know I didn’t leave the radio on, nor was the computer on so the music wasn’t coming from Youtube.
Before I could discover the music’s location there was a knock at the door. .I thought to myself as I opened the door, It’s getting late, only a couple of hours before sunset, whose visiting me at the dinner hour? I stood there staring and frozen in place and totally speechless. I thought, ‘I must be dreaming.’
“No you are not dreaming,” said an older version of myself. And to answer another thought, yes it is getting late not only in this day but in our life.
“Can I please come in? It's cold out here. We do still have manners, don’t we? Said my future self.
I hurriedly moved to one side to allow her entrance. “And put the kettle on for some tea. It’s going to be along night.” To be continued……
The picture image is a photo of me many years ago….but not too many.
The lyrics are to the song – At Seventeen by Janis Ian
You can hear her sing it in its entirety, click below.
The intro she gives is worth the watch, in addition to the performance.
I also would like to give a shout out to 