I turn 44 in about two weeks. It’s once again a time for reflection. What am I doing right? What have I done wrong? What can I do better?
Naturally, I see the mistakes first. MISSED career opportunities, a FAILED marriage, a serious LACK of retirement FUNDS. If I look at the day to day, I often see a stressed out working mom who struggles with depression and chronic anxiety.
When I step away to look at my life through a different lens, I pretend I’m TWENTY, or SIXTEEN, or TWELVE, and I ask that younger self, what do you see.
Your Little You is Watching
My twelve-year-old self couldn’t care less about the size of my house or the scratches and dings all over my car. Sixteen-year-old Holly isn’t embarrassed I take naps or feel tired all day long. Me at eighteen rolls her eyes that I worry I don’t spend enough time with my kids, or that I think burning dinner is a big deal worthy of self-castigation. She doesn’t judge me for letting the laundry pile up for a week or for letting my children wear the same pair of pants to school two days in a row.
Nope. She sees a woman who really has her shit together. She views me as someone who is raising boys, writes novels, runs an indie publishing company and works from her king-sized bed in her comfie cozies. Oh yeah, AND she sees a woman dating the raddest guy she knows, JAY SMITH!
Mini me thinks I’m pretty freakin’ awesome. I suspect for most of us, our younger selves would say, hey, you turned out pretty cool. You’ve done good. Thank you.
And if not, we can ask ourselves what we can fine tune. Or, maybe we simply need to step back a little further and take a gentler peek. The daily challenges it takes to live can blind us to all we do right.
And don’t we each deserve to take pride in our accomplishments?