spryng | An Open Letter to Myself

This is an open letter to you, myself. I'm going to be 25 in a little more than a month, and there are a few things we need to discuss. You're coming to the end of the springtime of your youth and the beginning of a whole new saga: the summertime of your adulthood. We need to talk about what this means for you, or more importantly, what you will make it mean.

But first let's talk about what you accomplished in your spring. It's not as little as you think:

- You learned how to walk, how to talk, how to cry and how to dig in your heels. What, you don't think that was important? All right:
- You also learned how to be an adult. You took a chance and left your family and friends behind for grand adventure and learning. Although the first time you might not have fully understood how terrified you should have been and all the things you were leaving behind, you did understand all that the second time and still went. Granted, it was only a summer, but man. What a summer.
- You made mistakes. You made a lot of mistakes. You flailed blindly at love and burned yourself more than once. You took classes you shouldn't have taken, that had nothing to do with your major and nearly broke your will to learn. You took the first opportunity, instead of waiting for something better. You hurt your friends, you hurt yourself, you let a lack of motivation rule you. You're still making mistakes, every single day.
- But you're learning from your mistakes. You know so much more now than you ever did, and you know you know nothing compared to the sheer amount of what there is to know.
You can repair bikes, wax philosophy, argue politics, write an essay, write a novel, cook a turkey, replace a tire, diagnose a faulty alternator, survive a panic attack, distinguish between five different types of cholla, clean and bandage a wound even when you're panicking, make a stranger laugh, bullshit with a cars salesman for over an hour and score a toaster, save for retirement, survive a job interview, coldcall, weather irate and vitriol-spewing callers, land in a foreign city and navigate the bus system, run a mile, hold your breath for a minute, paint an apartment, drive clear across the country, find an apartment in another state, vote, drive through a monsoon/tropical storm/snow storm/pitch darkness, bake cupcakes, sing all of Lovely Bunch of Coconuts, brew a mean pot of tea or coffee, tie a figure-eight knot, fold an origami frog, and plan a picnic.
- You still can't figure out what to do with a crying baby, hold your own in a conversation of more than two, find a job you enjoy, consistently write, hold down a business, market yourself or your work, bike to work, win a political argument, be at peace with not making everyone happy, calm down an angry person, exercise daily, run a 5k, not extrapolate or fling about hyperboles for verbal effect, sew, fix an appliance, speak Spanish, keep in contact with your friends and family on a semi-consistent basis, or know all of your personal failings.

But that's okay! You've got time to figure it all out yet, and learn about all those other things you don't even know you can't do. Unless you die spectacularly tomorrow, but there's not much you can do about that besides making your peace with your place in life and making sure your friends and family know you love them. So don't fret.

That said, it helps to have a plan, and starting out with a good idea about where you want to head in the summertime of your adulthood will help ease your mind and give you a goal. Granted, you know exactly how life likes to go in unexpected places, so don't fine-tune the details at the expense of actually doing stuff. But we don't want to be completely at the mercy of life, either: Balance is key.

Let's start easy and broad. What are your priorities? Happiness has always been your ultimate goal in life, but what makes you happy? If the past few years have been any indication, you're happiest when you're out doing, creating, or helping others. So in the next five years, I want you to go out of your way to find ways to do, create and help.

So now, that might be too broad. All right: let's whittle this down into doable, bite-sized chunks. Every day you have hours and hours of free time, and this is only going to last so long before either you're out of a job post-election, or your new boss (and office) is inundated with new requests. Either way, you're going to suddenly have a lot less time. So you need to capitalize on this opportunity. You have already, with the agency internship. Too bad that fell through. Still, there are tons of other opportunities out there just like it.

Like writing articles. With the internet, there are plenty of ways to submit articles and get paid. Granted, mostly you'll get paid a mere pittance, but the experience and the words are what count here. Once you get comfortable writing on a daily basis for pay, you can crack open a Writer's Market and begin eying better publishers. But first you need the confidence and the experience. That leads us to

Goal One: Write Every Day

An article, a paragraph, a short story, or your novels. Do it. Every. Day.

I also want you to learn another creative hobby. It can be anything, like sewing or painting or reinvigorating your photography or crafting or cooking. Whatever it is, it's going to be and remain a hobby. And you're going to have fun with it and it will be there for you when everything else just kind of sucks. And – to be completely honest – maybe someday you will get really good at it and be in the position to monetize it. But not now. Now it will just be fun. Now it will be creating for creating's sake.

Goal Two: Establish a Hobby

Got that? Good. This will help with the doing, as well. But what about the helping? What can you do towards that end? This will take a little more thought. It may mean volunteering. It may mean tutoring. It may even mean – gasp! - volunteering to tutor. Or something. Think about it. Research the opportunities. And strike out on one by September. Here, just to give you some focus for now, look into what it will take to tutor Latin again. That won't be too hard, since you've done it before. But it will mean research and it will mean review. And it will mean

Goal Three: Translating a Little Three Times a Week

Bring your Wheelock to work. Bring some original Latin. Work on the basics and get back to translating. I know you haven't forgotten as much as you think you have. Plus, it'll get you thinking in the foreign language mindset again, which will help you

Goal Four: Learn some Spanish

Not immediately. But as soon as you can find a way to fit it into your schedule, you better take a Spanish class. And I do mean a class. MIT has opencourseware for Spanish I. Start with that. You can practice with your coworkers.

With those four goals, you're going to be creating every day and learning every day, which will help set you up for more and better opportunities when they come around. I realize you can easily get overwhelmed if you throw yourself at all four of these goals at once, so take your time. Ease into goal one, then shove goal two into a day a week, then bring in goal three as you get comfortable with goal one. Once you have those three goals established, you can find time for goal four. If you feel you're getting overwhelmed, ease up starting with four and working backwards.

That's easy, right? Good. Then you have no excuse. I want you to check back with me in six months and we can see how you're doing, reevaluating as necessary. But these will be your priorities, along with exercising and being a good friend. That's it. Six things. Because one of the biggest things you're going to run into as you sprint towards 30 is the realization that while you can do anything, you can't do everything. And there are so many other things you're going to want to do, which is why half of those things can fall by the wayside eventually. But never writing, exercising, and friends.

Now I want you to take some time and write a big old list. Not just any list. This is going to be the list of crazy, awesome things you want to do/go/see in the next five years. And when you get that list, we're going to work together to make every single thing on there attainable. Because being an adult doesn't mean giving up on those things, ever. All right?

Good.

Now go. I'll see you back here in a week with that list. The summertime of your adulthood is going to start awesome and keep on awesoming. In a few years, I plan to double that list of things you can do. :)

Love,
Amy