Letters to My Grown-Up Self

When I was younger I thought that I would be incredibly sophisticated by now. Enough that I kept my old editions of things like eighteenth-century American fiction anthologies from high school and two different paperback copies of Plato’s dialogues from my college core philosophy classes. Because grown-up me would obviously be reading these things in her (my?) spare-time. From middle school through to senior year, I had the BBC bookmarked on my browser (the most grown-up of all the grown-up news sources), and I would scroll through the “Health” and “Also in the News” sections. Not, you know, the actual “News” section.

When everybody else was celebrating the turn of the millennium, I was about 7000 years ahead of the party. Clearly, I was a child ahead of my time.

I had visions of subscribing to the New Yorker (it costs $70) and enjoying my leisure hours in Manhattan (just getting there and back–off-peak–costs $21 total) and living a fashionable life where wearing makeup did not make me feel like I wanted to scratch my own face off.

So in this open letter to my ten year-old self, I’d like to let her (me?) know that growing up is not all that fabulous–or, at least, I’m not all that fabulous. I’m sure that there are other (mostly) grown-up folks who are plenty fabulous. (Mostly) Grown-up me is like a slightly more self-confident version of ten year-old me if you squint, step back, and add another eleven years. This might come as a shock to her (me?), but I don’t know what she’s complaining about.

Oh, another thing, ten year-old me: you’ll find “sophisticated” people rather boring in eleven years. Grown-ups are a lot less sophisticated than you thought they would be–think of it as two-parts genuine interest, one-part keping up appearances (well, think of it that way when you are feeling generous). And twenty-one feels a lot less “grown up” than you had originally thought.

Keep reading and daydreaming. And try not to take yourself so seriously anymore.

–Marie-Irene