Today I read over some blog posts from seven years ago. They made my stomach clench. They made my lips feel dry. I was not okay seven years ago. Well, I was "okay," as in "I survived." I'm here now. But I wasn't doing WELL. I was doing far worse than I even had the perspective to see.
I don't know why I'm writing this post except that I want to recommend you keep records for yourself. Not everyone journals, not everyone blogs, not everyone updates her Facebook status so that it will pop up as a "Memory" every year, but I want to encourage you do do SOMETHING to capture how you're feeling and how you're doing these days. In a few years, you'll care. In a few years, you'll want to know how far you've come in a specific, tangible way.
Consider writing letters to your future self. I've done that before too. Write a letter and date it to be opened sometime in the future. My fourteen-year-old self wrote a letter to my twenty-four-year-old self. My first-day-of-college self wrote a letter to her first-day-of-Christmas-break self. My Christmas 2013 self wrote a letter to my Christmas 2014 self.
Reading those letters to yourself is...almost magical.
It really helps in the moment. It helps you realize that there is a future; that the moment you're in in just a moment, the phase you're in is just a phase—for better or worse.
It gives you purpose. It makes you excited to "meet" your future self.
It can be a great way to keep your priorities in check. You can spell out what your principles are as a whatever-year-old, and remind your future self to bear those principles in mind. It can help you realize how much you've grown when something that was so crucial to your past self has given way to more important things.
It's cathartic.
It's fun.
10/10, would recommend.
If you'll excuse me, I think I'm going to write a blog post to myself and schedule it to post one year from today.
~Stephanie
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