Letter to Myself – Sheri Lynch

Dear Sheri,

It’s okay to cry, you know. You may be 14 now, but you’re a little girl, so young for your age – you were still playing with dolls not so very long ago. You miss your mom. That’s normal. You’re supposed to miss your mom. Missing her doesn’t mean you don’t love your brothers or your grandmother, or even your father, though that relationship is one you’ll have to fight to keep from being poisoned by. It’s not disloyal to grieve. And it’s okay to be angry. You should be angry. You are angry. Here’s the good news: this anger is going to do wonderful things for you for a long time. It’s going to motivate you, drive you to push yourself far past what you’ll be told is permitted. This anger is like a rocket booster, and it’s going to propel you into an amazing life. But a time will come when all of the good fuel in that anger is spent, and you’ll need to jettison the weight. Try not to wait as long as I did, okay? Let it fall away, and trust you’ll fly higher without it.

Hate to tell you this next thing, but you might as well hear it from me. You’re not going to be lucky in love – at least, not for a long time. Oh, don’t feel sorry for yourself! You’re going to learn an awful lot along the way, and the biggest lesson for you is: don’t merely allow yourself to be chosen. Do the choosing. Here’s a riddle for you to puzzle over for the next several decades: the unbreakable heart is the one most broken. Doesn’t make sense right now, does it? It will, and at a high cost. But not so high you can’t pay it. And I promise, while there’s both more and less time than you think to figure it out, you will figure it out. And when you do, wow. You are going to have so much fun. You – fun! Imagine that. I can’t wait for you to get there.

Love,
Sheri – June, 2008