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.