When Older Me Met Younger Me
what reading my old journals has taught me about myself
Issue #37/ Welcome to Good and Beautiful Things, thanks so much for joining me in this space.
Last week I wrote about the journals that I’ve stowed away in my closet, the finished and partly-finished volumes that span from 1995 to present day. I told you about the burning fear that I will die before I get the chance to destroy my journals or at least censor the parts that I wouldn’t want my kids to read. If you haven’t had a chance to read that newsletter, I recommend taking a moment to catch-up before continuing on with my follow-up thoughts today.
Also, a quick thanks1 to those who contributed to a great conversation in the comments last week. I really enjoyed hearing about your own relationships with your journals and I learned something from each of you. You also raised the interesting question of who gets to decide the afterlife of a journal—is the decision solely in the hands of the person who wrote the journal or does their family have a say in whether the journal gets saved? Does preserving family history trump a request from the owner for her words to be destroyed?
A comment by my friend Shannon left me with a desire to put a Post-it note on each of my journals with this bit that she shared:
“-each line represents only where I was at the time, not where I ended up.”
She also offered a compelling reason to trust her family with her journals:
“Who knows what my daughters might see about God's faithfulness in my life if they looked back over the time I've chronicled?”
Thoughts about my journals have lingered this week. In the name of further research, I read three of my journals from college. Despite the fact that I wrote the words over twenty-five years ago, I was immediately back in my younger self. I could feel the metal bench beneath me, the tall street light casting a glow as I sat at an intersection between the tall, oat-colored dorms at the University of South Florida. While the aggressive squirrels slowly surrounded me, I wrote page after page, berating myself for what my young eighteen-year-old self perceived as mistakes.
“Dear Lord, I’m sorry that I…”
“Dear Lord, I’m constantly amazed by the ease with which I break commitments to you..”
“I’m meant to be a light in this mess, but I wasn’t shining very bright today.”
My jaw tensed as the words transported me back to how much I lived with constant criticism and disappointment from myself. My first reaction was to close the journals and again I considered tossing them in the garbage.
But my second reaction was overwhelming compassion for the try-so-hard eighteen-year-old me. I wanted to give her a big hug and tell her it was okay to take a nap2. I wanted to pull the covers up to her chin and watch as her eyes closed and her breathing eased. My hope was that her worries would melt away from her forehead and her body would finally relax, like a child who knows her father has things under control.
After a few minutes, I did close the journals because I’ve learned that it’s okay to just take a short trip to the past and then resurface in the present again. During this journal dive experiment, I’ve given myself permission to process the past in smaller, more manageable bites.
Even five years ago I wouldn’t have been able to read these old journals with the same compassion as I can today. I would have viewed Younger Me through the same critical lens as I did back then. Compassion is a more recent gift, acquired through my journey with chronic pain and it’s a gift that I can’t put a price on.
So far revisiting Younger Me hasn’t been without pain but there have been pleasant surprises, too. I’ve come across good memories that I had forgotten about (see last week’s newsletter). I’ve experienced validation that the seasons I thought were particularly hard were in some ways even harder than I remembered. And it’s allowed me to see my evolution from critic to compassionate friend, not only to myself but to those around me.
In Case You Missed It
Favorite Finds
Article
Confronting My Giant: A Student’s Perspective on Mental Health Abroad:
My twenty-one-year old daughter spent last year in France. She was courageous enough to write about her struggle with anxiety while studying abroad. I highly recommend her article.
At the Movies
This week I watched the movie, Past Lives, which has just been released for rent on streaming services. The main character wrestles with the life (and people) she left behind in Seoul and the life she’s chosen in America. It’s a subtle but shimmering story about the choices we make and the impact of those choices on our identity over time. It certainly resonates with me as I contemplate the twists and turns that led me to where I am now.
Blessings from the Guest Nest,
-Aimee
Naps were something I regularly mentioned in my journals as an act of failure. My daughter who is currently in college also gets onto herself for naps.
All I see is Antonio Banderas, lol! What a gift to be able to look back at your younger self but without judgement. ….You must be so proud of your daughter, she’s so brave going abroad alone. What a great experience for her.
Compassion and nap taking and a link to an excellent essay by your daughter! this posting is filled with good and beautiful things!!