to my 20 year old self

dear...you. 

oh, you are one hot mess, my dear.  but you don't know it yet so ignorance is bliss at this point.  25 is gonna kick your ass but let's not get ahead of ourselves.  At 20, your potential has no limits.  You are trying to take on the biggest, boldest plans your imagination can come up with and at this point, that means moving to Europe for the summer.  You'll be heading to Geneva, Switzerland to intern for a really big um, non-profit of sorts and oh my, you think this is really cool. and impressive.  but you are terrified.  Your dad is going to take you to the airport for your flight to Zurich, hand some francs over to you, give you a big hug and wish you luck.  Fighting tears, you say goodbye and suddenly feel very small, and very young.  now it was time to walk the walk baby girl. 

You'll land, take a cab to your apartment, walk in the room and burst into tears. It's 20 square meters ( a steal at $1,100 a month!).  The bed folds down from the wall and it hits all four walls when out.  You call home and cry to your mama.  'Go to church,' she'll say.  HOW ON EARTH WAS I EVEN SUPPOSE TO FIND IT?  That was Saturday night, and the next morning, you'll get up and find the bus stop that is suppose to take you to two other bus stops that will take you to the english speaking branch.  You'll walk up the path and run into 2 second cousins that are backpacking through Europe and decided to stop by.  You'll meet lots of people that day that will help you, support you, teach you how and where to grocery shop and how you are going to get to work the next morning.  That's the church, anywhere in the world, it's all the same.

You have a great summer, you work hard, get quite mistreated by the French for your citizenship (pretty much verbally abused for the whole Texas thing), but you'll get by and learn the need to whole your head high.  You'll move in with a family out in the country in a small house in a field of sunflower fields and those are the fields you will run through every afternoon after work, passing them and into the woods that you loved and probably shouldn't have.  Oh what a summer that will be and you'll come back home a whole lot wiser than you left.

You'll head back to school, you'll write the boys, finish up your general ed's and oh how I wish you could stop and realize that this year will be the last calm and healthy year for well.. a long time.  Next summer you'll be at BYU-Hawaii, NOT relaxing, spending endless hours in the math lab as you take Calculus 3.  You'll spend your 21st birthday in an 8 hour calculus exam, stubborn you studied so hard and just won't give up on those problems.  You'll fail the test but pass the class with a 69.5.  score.

Your friends are going to get married now.  All of them.  Well, most of them, in the next year or two. Be happy for them, happy for their timing and be nice to their husbands - it is they who now have to share their wife with you, not the other way around.

You'll head back to school and decide to double major in Statistics. Why.  Do yourself a favor and don't do it.  Admit it, you just like the way it sounds.  You'll hate it. You'll hate every minute you spend on it and even though you'll study 70 hours + for those DAMN stats tests, your resulting grades in the 20's and 30's aren't because you didn't try, you tried harder than everyone else in that class, it is because  this just isn't for you, admit that, swallow your pride and walk away.  Dare to stand on your own two feet and fight the pressure to be perfect in every way.  But you won't.  It will force you nearly to a nervous breakdown and start that terrible habit of yours of doing so much that you'll be scared to stop, even for a second, and ask yourself what's really wrong.

The parental units.  It's just time.  It's for the best.  You've wanted this to happen for so long so here it is, honey.  Despite the necessity of it, it will rip you apart. Hang in there, make it through that first year. Things will be so much better in time.

Your senior year of BYU will come close to killing you.  It's not normal for 21 year olds to have to lose gallbladders due to stress induced gallstones.  Stop!  Stop right there and breathe! Add another year!  Walk away!  You're not wonderwoman!  Oh and all of those promptings about a mission - yeah, stop debating with the Lord about them and open your eyes to depths further than you can see.

Off you go to DC, off to graduate school at age 22.  Oh you feel so ahead, so with it.  Why does it all feel kinda wrong?  It is.  Your heart is not in this.  Yet, you will trudge through, treading water every second of the day.  Please stand up for yourself.  Your 20 hour a week internships will soon turn into 90 hours, don't let it.  It is not normal to work a 90 hours a week (for free) and go to school full-time at night. Those two all-nighters you pull every week isn't dedication and sacrifice, it's because your head is so full of chaos you get nothing done. ever.  Honey, no one should have to sleep under their desk at night, those are dues that just too much to pay.

Time will march on and the next summer you'll find yourself in Thailand, half-naked and hitchhiking your way around Asia.  Stop here and realize what an experience that is, how free you are and yet, how naive.  The things you will see there will haunt your mind for years to come.  You will be fearless and yet young, as if those things are separate.  Write this stuff down.  Write about that hotel you stayed in that didn't even have sheets, just a dirty piece of foam.  Write down about those people, how even their graciousness survived.  Oh, and your cab driver in Vietnam is going to try and kidnap you and take you to his house instead of your hotel.  Get ready to run.

You'll finish grad school. At graduation you'll feel relieved, proud, but empty - something will be missing.Your love affair with the city will be your most valuable degree from this experience and that's plenty. I beg of you though, put down the smith stubbornness and just put in those papers.  What a door that will open.  Only good, just do it.  When you pull up to your stake president's house to turn those things in and sit in the car for 30 minutes paralyzed in fear, yeah, that's what they are talking about, nothing truly great happens without that fear.  That stuff is what makes a life.

Africa.  Holy.  Sacred. Wild. Dirt. Famine. Suffering. Disease. Humility. Gratitude. Pain. Confusion. Peace. Colors. Atonement. Raw. Scary. Joyful. Amazing. Blamelessness. Acceptance. Inspiring. Defining.

Leaving Africa early will come close to doing you in.  It will hurt, it will sting.  With those airplane wheels leaving the African soil goes your with it your will, it's okay - your work there was done.  Please don't blame yourself.  Don't think about all of the people six more months of work could help. it wouldn't.  it wasn't meant to be.  hold your head up, cheeks - turn the page.

The next few years you will wait, and wait, and wait to get better so you can go back to that life. yeah, the one you hated.  You'll go to any doctor that you can, tell your sob story and beg for a magic pill.  It doesn't work like that honey and oh, how I wish I could spare you the disappointment, mistreatment, belittlement and degradation that awaits you. Doctors aren't  gods.  They practice medicine and it is just that. Yet one after the other you will go to, leave in tears and  head home to make more appointments. You will furiously wait to wake up better one day so you can go back to your old life.  Honey, that one's gone.  That person is gone.  Time to start over and live the new one right in front of you.

Some huge lessons are going to be taught to you through this quiet time of rest and guilt, though.  One, we really are all equal.  You'll head down to the county hospital's open clinic and wait for hours to see a nurse that has never heard of your condition and will refer to a specialist.  The specialist will have an appointment for you in just over a year's time. (thanks medicaid, it's been fun).  You'll meet people in the waiting rooms of these places and have quite a discovery, they are all just like you.  Not in the highest moment of their lives, in need of aid and not judgment, sick, afflicted, addicted, and simply asking for help.  You are not better than them, you are not more deserving than them.

Years will go by and you will struggle, suffer and have some really hard days.  There will be times you will be so sick that death would be welcome but you are tough, you are stubborn, and now, finally, you are open and vulnerable to be taught.  listen. learn. realize the Savior's arms around you and get through each day the best you can. You might not have worked a 9 to 5 and come home to a bonafied home of your own but that's okay, it's not a race and that certainly isn't the only one to run.

Some of your friends will start to leave. It's okay, they just can't handle it anymore.  Too much gray, too much unvalidated by modern medicine, must be in your head, they eventually think, this is getting ridiculous, doctor's can't find anything, i'm a working mom and i know what it's like to be really tired.  The game of you hiding your illness so they won't have to be inconvenienced by worrying about you can only last so long. it's time. let them go.  the problems are much deeper than they might appear.  Hold your head up high and let them go.

The big 30 will approach and you'll wonder what on Earth happened in the last 10 years. What happened to that concrete plan you laid out? What is the result of all of that hard work?  It happened. It's over. That was a different time and you are a different you. Be grateful for that. Learn to see the beauty in that.  The hope and flick of light you are feeling is there for a reason.  It's time to be happy, it's time to be hopeful.  You may be sick for a very long time, you may not - either way it doesn't matter.  You are finally you.  and it's right.

kisses,
beef