Letter from my 80 year old self

May 31st, 2080

What a weekend! It’s such a blessing to be able to spend time with so many dear friends and family, and a whole holiday weekend at that. My wife, our kids, their spouses, our grandchildren. My siblings and their families. My neighbors and friends, some old who traveled in, others new who live nearby. The weather was lovely.

We made it, Arielle. 80 years. 80 laps around the sun. 80 summers, 80 autumns, 80 winters, and 80 springs. Remember when we almost didn’t make it to 21? That seems both so long ago and like yesterday. The joy we have experienced has been 100% worth it.

Sitting back and seeing everyone throughout this weekend - each in their own stage in life - has stirred up in me empathy, love, and connection. As a reunion and celebration of these sorts lends to the rattling off of achievements and the crazy stories between them, I know I have spent my life well.

I do hope my youngest granddaughter hands down my collection of writings to her child. What I would have given for the ability to know what kind of life my great grandmother lived. And so, perhaps this can be an introduction to my works as a whole.

What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? How are we to spend our time, our energy, our care and devotion? What is success? Why should we strive for it? When do we know we’ve reached it? And then what? What happens after life?

When I was in middle school, I wrote a short essay stating that the best way to measure success is to evaluate how well we’ve loved and helped others. Not too shabby for a twelve year old. When I was in high school, success meant being well rounded in academics, athletics, music, and language. My success in helping people had been funneled into how to get on the path toward the best job (at helping people). When I was a young adult, my idea of success was graduating college, becoming financially independent, building friendships, and finding a partner. Really all of these boiled down to both wanting to get back the timeline I had lost in my illness and to finding a close friend to end the years of loneliness.

While I had been balancing working through my trauma and reintegrating into society, I got caught in the comparison game. I wanted so badly to fit in and be accepted that I felt I wasn’t successful until I had achieved those things. I had learned how to accept the past and pivoted to working towards the future. I wouldn’t be happy until I had built my life worth living that I first dreamt with Amy. Guess how one feels in the intermediary? Not happy. Not content. The suffering continues to feed.

The practice of mindfulness was first introduced to me at the Priory Roehampton in London. “As you walk along the gravel path, let your attention settle on the sensation of the rocks under your feet”. Later, it was taught as a distress tolerance tool in the DBT program. As with the whack-a-mole game that is mental illness, my need for mindfulness transitioned into a grounding technique for my dissociative disorder. “What five things can you see, four things you can hear, three things you can feel, two things you can smell, one thing you can taste?” While Amy helped me get a foot in the door of living with my eyes wide open by preaching “You can only live in the present moment”, Nicki helped me learn how to properly respect the door of time altogether. I straight up asked her one session “How do you live happily?” She quickly replied “The practice of gratitude”. I rolled my eyes and sighed real deep because I knew that was true. To my surprise, she followed with, “And how do you define success?” That question hit me hard. But it’s an important one because how can we fully experience life when we are constantly working towards meeting success?

So, I gift you my wisdom. Success is living according to your values. Success is living in the moment, feeling the connection between you and all living beings. Success is being human - feeling all the feelings, making all the mistakes, giving grace to others and receiving grace in return. Success is using each moment to make the world a little better - even if it means doing whatever is necessary to survive - because you make the world better. Success is listening to the world around you and looking for the inherent value and beauty. Success is balancing radical acceptance and gratitude. We should strive for success because it means living life the most humanly way.

I hate to sound cliché, but the meaning of life is to live it. Don’t wait for heaven to enjoy living. We are here because we are meant to be. God loves us and wants us around. Death is a part of life - these bodies aren’t designed to live forever. And death, like in nature, gives way to new life. If our time here is finite, in a sense it is limited. We only get so many choices. How do we make the choice of how to spend our time?

I’ve already discussed the minute to minute and hour to hour. Our career is a huge chunk of time. Of course, first and foremost we need to be able to care for ourselves to the best of our ability. And then it is our responsibility to care for others. I implore you to find a career that allows you to spend the most amount of time grounded in reality and which aims to bring justice and dignity to all.

You know you’ve reached success when “I’m living the dream” isn’t a sarcastic Midwestern remark, but rather an authentic truth. There will always be pain and grievances, ailments, and illnesses. Along the way you learn how to navigate the boundaries of self and community care. At some point, you find joy in simply being with people, in sharing the burdens and pain. At some point, you learn how to just be. If you’re lucky enough.

I hope you find throughout my volumes of memoirs and numerous theological works the clues you are looking for. Wisdom isn’t ever a destination. It’s a process. It will come as you are ready. You can’t force it, so feeling like you aren’t getting wise fast enough isn’t some character flaw.

My biggest achievement was learning how to love. It’s hard to love in a world in which the people and animals in our lives are constantly shifting. It’s hard when people don’t love us back in the way in which we deserve. It takes time, but you will learn how to set boundaries as to who to love and let love you.

Soak up the sunshine. Breathe in the fresh air. Feel the cool water refresh your body. Allow the grass to kiss your feet. Give yourself grace and live in this moment, for that is how you spend a life.

I am so thankful for my Parts for helping me survive and get the help I needed. I am so thankful for their willingness to learn how to work together and adapt and mature when necessary. I am thankful for all the people who provided support and care when I could barely swim. I am thankful to have lived in a time where I could explore my queer, neurodivergent identity and also exist as fully me.