Saturday, September 23, 2017

Changeless

Two poems, written a lifetime apart:


MEMO TO MYSELF
(January 29, 1993, two weeks from being 21)

MEMO:
            Learn what you want
                        (And some of what you don’t want)
            Do well
            Eat your vegetables
            Blow soap bubbles in the spring
            Appreciate some fine art
            Exercise
            Play in the snow
            Take night walks
            Blow bubbles in your milk
            Be nice to yourself
            Be nice to others
            Have a good cup of coffee
            Laugh
            Cry
            Have good friends
            Fall in love
            Sing!
            Wear hats
            Travel (if only in your mind)
            Be yourself
            Write
            Read
            Never forget to be young (ever)


ADVICE
(September 3, 2017, smack in the middle of being 45)

Take the meeting
Ask the question
Open up
Get hurt
Heal
Don’t dwell
Don’t hold back
Learn
Live
Reach
Assume people like you
Don’t worry when they don’t
Know you’re good enough
Run if it feels wrong
Stay if it could be right
Go with your gut
Send the resume
Trust yourself
Own yourself
Be yourself
Don’t let go of who you are
Kiss the boys
Take the chance




I don’t often wear my heart on my sleeve.  I save it for paper.  This has been my modus operandi since I was a teenager.  It has not changed in part because I have written sporadically as an adult.  Before, I wrote constantly from the age of 10 until I started college.  Sometimes, it was for school.  Most often, it was for the fun of it.  I just did it; it was part of who I was. 


The core of who I am does not change.  When I wrote “Advice,” I had completely forgotten about “Memo to Myself.”  Written a lifetime apart, they speak to each other.  They speak to me.  I am writing to my older self and to my younger self.  At least one of us is still around to take note.

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