Dear younger self

-
Amanda through the ages (from L): about 2 years old. About 21 years old. Heading into her 60s.

To mark International Women’s Day on Tuesday, some women are writing letters to their younger selves with advice or wisdom from their older point of view. I took up the challenge.

It was an interesting exercise to write such a letter to my younger self — thinking back to what that young woman thought success could look like (the corporate ladder) and how my unfolding life has shown me what it actually has come to mean for me (my own character).

In the ‘writing as tool for transformation’ courses I have developed with my creative collaborator, Deborah Schnitzer, we include several writing exercises that invite the participants to write the same story from different points of view. It’s a powerful means to open up our understanding of our own experiences.

I encourage you to write a letter to younger self. You might be surprised to read what you’ve learned in the intervening years. 

--------------


International Women's Day: March 8, 2022


Dear Younger Amanda — 


You will be loved by many for who you are. You do not need to be anyone different than who you already are at your young age: smart, joyful, kind, generous. As you grow up and grow older, have the courage to step into the light of your own self, your own character.


Education is important and you will love just about every minute of the studies you undertake, but you will really shine when you work with others on issues that matter to you, including women’s rights and reproductive justice. You will surprise yourself at the leadership roles you step into and succeed in. That success will come from the skills you already have as a young woman, which you will refine throughout your life: critical thinking, clear communication, and commitment to collaboration. 


Let go of your young-girl aspirations of climbing the corporate ladder and being a swank CEO in a corner office. Nothing wrong with those, of course, but you will eventually find your way to the front of the classroom — the natural place for your love of learning and your skilled leadership that combine into productive work as an educator. You will discover that you love it and you will take it with you into retirement — yes, you will eventually leave full-time work and then you will discover the joy of taking your teaching skills into the community. 


All this very good life lies ahead of you, dear Younger Amanda. Trust yourself. Stay true to yourself. Work with others. And you will find yourself living a quite ordinary life that brings extraordinary rewards to you. 


It’s all within you today…for the tomorrows that lie ahead of you. 


Go get it, girl! 

With love,

Older Amanda 

#MFGP


NOTE: Many thanks to my cousin Ian Kellas, who created the composite photo of me as a baby and a young woman, with the typewriter incorporated. Many thanks to Deborah Schnitzer for the current portrait of me. 


———
Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.

Comments

  1. BarbaraMarch 8, 2022 at 10:15 AM

    Very interesting Amanda, my life certainly doesn't look like what I had envisioned many, many years ago, my vision included zoology or something else in science. So far from my reality.

    ReplyDelete
  2. MargueriteMarch 8, 2022 at 10:38 AM

    Dear Marguerite (nee Mary),

    It will all start to make sense. Be patient. It is your process. I see you now sixty years later and I see that you have remained kind. That is who were then and who you are today. You have remained true to us.

    ReplyDelete
  3. danielle-momoMarch 8, 2022 at 3:23 PM

    Lovely pictures Amanda
    I love this idea : to write to my younger self.
    I'll have to think more about what I would say.

    Trying to comment with my old, old device. Can't go through with the other ones.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Comments are moderated. Please be respectful.

Popular posts from this blog

Listening for the piano / Thinking about grief

-
Image
Grief is not a land in which I have travelled much, though I routinely explore it via others’ experience. I am drawn to do this as a student is drawn to the masters: To observe, to sit with, to wonder if those others’ experiences might help prepare me for my own when I find myself in that place. Will it? Sara Paretsky, author of the V.I. Warshawski mystery series, says that the grief over her long-time husband’s death hit her like a grand piano falling out of the sky onto her head. There is no pre-mourning, she says. Nonetheless, I persist in my studies: Memoirs of loss. Stories of grief. Tales of survival. I sit with those experiences. The words, the feelings, the anguish wash over me. And I ask myself: Will the sun rise tomorrow? Will I see it when it does?  Should I worry about this? Should I just expect, presume that what has always been will always be? Absurd. It will not always be. The loves of my life are all older, are all old. 95, my mother. Almost 80, my partner. 16, my cat.
Read more

Life story: I am from...where? who? what?

-
Image
The Le Rougetel family circa 1965: Anne, Charles, Amanda, Katy, Colin I recently attended the celebration of life for a friend’s father who had died at 95. The service was bright with song and lively with memories, and it got me thinking about how we wrap up a life with stories. Stories of fun and adventure, success and achievement, of impact and wisdom. Or maybe stories of hardship and pain, of loss and lack, of hard luck and sorrow. Or, likely, a mix of all that. Regardless, at the end, we celebrate a life in story. It got me thinking about how my story might be told when my end comes. That’s a long way off, I hope, but in the meantime, I pulled out an activity that Deborah and I have used in one of our writing workshops . It’s a variation on the “I am from…” prompt developed by George Ella Lyon , and it’s surprisingly thought provoking. It asks you to dig ever deeper about where you are from — while the cheap answer is Toronto (city where I was born), the richer, more valuable answe
Read more

If pride comes before a fall, what comes after disappointment?

-
Image
Disappointment is not something any of us aim for, I’m sure. The very last thing I ever want to be told by someone is that they are disappointed in me. But this week, I have been very disappointed in others. Life goes on, but that niggling thread of “if only” and “why could it not have been different” lingers in the corners of my mind. Last week’s lightening-quick sale of our cottage ended in disappointment all round when the deal fell through at the final hurdle. The details are not what matter here; what matters is that age-old life lesson about counting your chickens before they’re hatched and sharing good news before it is fully rooted and secured. But who among us has not jumped the gun? Presumed that all would go as promised, as planned? Believed in the goodness of people and trusted that the story would unfold as it had begun — smoothly, seamlessly, successfully? Ah, well. Sometimes it just doesn’t. So we find ourselves at a new beginning, with a different round of showings and
Read more