The ME, the MYSELF, and the MINE! of EstherCW: March 2015

This was meant to be posted yesterday on my birthday, but Sir Terry Pratchett had just passed on and I didn't want to post anything that wasn't about him or his work just then. Plus, I was busy grieving with my fellow fans. GNU Sir Terry Pratchett.

Hi Esther.

I'm happy to say that ten years on, you are doing fairly well. Alright, you aren't doing anything majorly fantabulously glorious of even the 'minor celebrity' variety, but you are in the right place, doing the right things, taking care of people who love you and are grateful for you.

You've been away from mom for years now and have learned a lot about taking care of yourself - be proud of that. In fact, you have even learned that you are capable of taking care of other people - and pets! Not ucky wild ones though, thankfully.

You really should get off your butt and exercise and not eat those quantities. Come on, I know you probably won't take this advice because you won't bother to, but at least think about trying! By the way, I know why your eyebrows are that thin, but it's a terrible look for you. A teeny weeny bit thicker will be just right. Shut up, I've had more internet, I know more than you. Also, read that English Lit book from cover to cover. Or even just Hamlet. I swear you'll thank me - well, yourself. There are some stunningly good books waiting for you by the way. You're going to lose so many hours of sleep over them. You're welcome. Not that that would be any different from what you do now.

July 2005

Yes, you've made some dumbass choices that have hurt others pretty badly. Sorry about my choice of words, it just does seem fitting from here. I wish you would stop yourself. I wish I could clamp my hands over your mouth before you said the stupid words. I wish I could stop you from doing those things that will end up hurting other people. For all that, you are a thoughtful person. The bad things you've done were not because you didn't think them through - they're because you thought them through and came out confused and/or angry. I can't say as much for the things you said. Most of the time you really were plain mean, but you can work on that. At least you'd better!

Now, because I care, and because this is I-can't-freaking-stress-this-enough important, here is a word about boys (cupping my hands around my mouth and shouting for all I'm worth): stay the hell away from the ones currently around you! Really. Regret is a short word but the burning shame of those memories will squiggle in your heart long after they shouldn't matter any more. You'll get plenty of chances with plenty of decent guys, I promise! Just respect yourself enough to say no. To yourself, to them, to yourself again. You are better than you think you are. Not in the high and mighty bad way. Not better than them - just better than YOU think you are.

Make what right choices are in your power to make day by day and soon enough everything will change. You don't have to do what other people do, be they girls or guys or your peers or not your peers. Hold yourself to standards that are as high as you think you can reach plus a little bit. Grit your teeth and chant over and over that this is just learning time. Get through it, and you'll graduate and have a use for all that knowledge and all those skills.

"What skills?" you gripe at me? Yeah, yeah, I know. You appear to be as talented as a fish on a tightrope. So maybe you are a fish and maybe you are on a tightrope just at present. One day, you'll be in the sea and then suddenly everyone will see that you can swim as well as anyone. Or maybe you're more like a tightrope walker who is in the sea at the moment. Yeah, that analogy makes slightly more sense. Hopefully.

Anyway, you can't swim for beans and you feel like such a loser next to all these people who are practically mermaids. Look, if you can dog paddle long enough you'll reach the shore, climb onto that wire and then they'll see who rules.

Honestly, I don't know exactly how proud you'd be of me if you could see me now. I know you'd be quite proud of the highlights and encouraged to know that you'd touched many people's lives VERY deeply, but in the every day...well, I can do better. I know you didn't see me, but this has got me thinking. I should change. I do need to try harder to be a better person. "Prepare now, you never know what's going to spring on you!" is my motto. Actually, in a couple years you're going to read a much, much better version of that, but I can't tell you now because that would be a spoiler akin to "you currently have nine red-headed children", etc etc.

By the way, you're going to become quite good (many people whose opinions seriously count will tell you that you are VERY good) at MANY things that you are crap at now. Stuff you don't even dare try now will be as easy as wasting time online in a few years.

You are going to grow into your own person, with opinions, habits and stances that you freely express and proudly advocate. And some that you keep to yourself because in some form or another that is the loving thing to do ;-)

Yes, lots of things are sucky and angering right now, and yes, they will continue to be, because, umm, LIFE, but just you wait for the beautiful, the breath-taking, the glorious things that will fill hours and days and weeks and collective months and dare I say YEARS of your time! You will find so, so many things to be ecstatically happy about. You will revel in awesomeness and wonder how anyone can be sad in a world that holds such, such magnificent things. And the best part is that those things will keep coming. They're not all stored up in Heaven or at the very end of your existence here or at any one part of your life. They are splashed and blobbed all along your life's path and you are going to enjoy millions of them!

You're great, but not very much right now compared to what you are going to be.
Head up, standards high, hands busy. You'll go far.