“The blizzard doesn’t last forever, it just seems so.”
— Ray Bradbury
One question often asked in celebrity interviews that always makes me sit up and pay attention is this: What would you tell your younger self?
It has prompted me to think about it through the eyes, heart and soul of my 10-year-old self. The answers tend to show in many ways a world which has changed and yet also remained the same.
I would tell that 10-year-old nervous Nellie that childhood is fleeting even though it feels to be agonizingly stalled while you feel that other children are studying your every move, criticizing reactions and shortcomings. They barely notice as they are too busy worrying over their own. We all are painfully self-conscious.
You will not have to rise between 4 and 4:30 a.m. forever and ever. It just feels that way.
Time will pass slowly, and counting down days until your next birthday is a gift that one day you will marvel over, wondering when the time shift came about that rushes days along so fast you can barely keep up.
That first boyfriend who crushes your spirit will one day fade away into nothingness. Believe me, though it seems impossible now, the day will come when his face is no longer imprinted on your psyche, and even his name is hard to recall.
The birthday party invitation that did not come will not break your spirit, after all.
The beloved Holstein, a pretty little thing that was a pet from the day of her birth, always had a finite lifetime.
No matter what you do or how you beg, the day will come all too soon in which you watch her loaded onto a livestock truck after her once-impressive milk production plummets.
When you are unique enough to wear her neckchain to school, you will suddenly become the coolest kid in the classroom, and even through the haze of heartache over losing her, it will feel pretty great.
Some of the hardest chores you complete with your Dad on the farms will turn out to be the best lessons of a lifetime, and his wisdom and patience will help to etch a depth within that strengthens you. And the dirty jobs? Those really do build character.
When renters move out and leave a mess in the houses on various farms, you are learning what disrespect looks — and feels — like. Helping to clean messes and clear trash, repair, paint and hang wallpaper is teaching you much more than just the task itself.
Your passion for dogs will become such an enormous part of your life that you simply cannot grasp how much it has formed the future you. Each dog is a gift, imprinted on your heart for a lifetime.
Love of writing, which some kids around you find kind of weird, will grow and take you places that also form your future. Keep embracing it.
People you love will die all too soon. No matter how many days you are given, it would never be enough.
Those piano lessons you detest will fade into the ether, and you’ll never be a musician. Pay more attention; one day you will be glad that you did.
