Most of us have those boxes – old shoeboxes or plastic bins the size of small trunks – that get filled up with the ephemera and memorabilia of our lives. The medals we won doing the backwards crab walk at Field Day in the 3rd grade; the Girl Scouts uniform with a sash full of patches; the scholarship essays that resulted in bonds that will be worth face value by the time Medicare kicks in.
And for me, during a recent basement organization project, it also included pained poems written by my teenaged self and love letters from my very first boyfriend.
I’ll spare myself (and that first boyfriend) from sharing the details of said ephemera here. I will offer, however, that which was most fascinating to me, most surprising about what I’d written: the person I am now, I was then and the person I was then, I am now.
I have long believed that life is not only a process of creation, but one of discovery and I am more convinced of that now than ever before. Underneath the teenage experience and angst in my journals and poetry is some core part of the same person who shows up today to write this blog. I am certain it is the same person who will (I hope) one day write about what she’s experiencing in 2045.
As I find myself nearing this Thanksgiving holiday, I am surprised to note that I feel most thankful for the simple fact that I am me. Not because of what I have or what I’ve done or who I know – although I could fill tomes with gratitude for those things. And not in spite of all my shortcomings and limitations. I am thankful because there’s this essential, unchanging part of me that is amazing.
Last week, I had the opportunity to see that very first boyfriend and I copied two of those love letters and returned them to him. While the letters were addressed to me, they speak volumes about who he was, who he no doubt still is. It is my hope that they offer him a window into his own beautiful self and that he feels gratitude for that essential, unchanging part of who he is.
May you, too, celebrate with much thanks the beautiful person you are. What a tremendous gift!
