conversations with your younger self

[cellio]

I swiped this idea from khaosworks, who introduced it here.

Take your life as it is now.

Imagine yourself, oh, some 15-18 years ago, if you're old enough to remember that far back.

What would the you of that time think if you could go back and talk about what you're doing now? Would your younger self believe you? Be happy? Or want to avert this future?

Are you where you thought you were going to be?

This isn't the old "Give your younger self advice" chestnut. It's a variation - you're telling yourself that this is the future to come... what would be your younger self's reaction?

Comments

[tashabear.livejournal.com]

I think the general reaction would be of relief... "Oh, thank god!" And then I'd probably screw everything up by hopping in the car to go look for Wolfie, because he was nearby all along.

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

Heh, I was thinking about this just the other day...

15 years ago I was 20 and still in college. Career/hobby: The younger me would have been glad to know that I'd eventually work for Microsoft, and somewhat skeptical about getting burned out ("aw, that won't happen to me...").

My younger self would have been extremely surprised to find out that I eventually became an avid runner/weight trainer and even more surprised about becoming a personal trainer (I remember someone in high school who chose to study Exercise Science and my response was "Ew, how boring. Whatever for?"). (Though maybe telling my younger self that might spur me to get the exercise bug sooner, especially once she found out how fat I was for so long *before* I got the bug. but if we can't change the intervening years... I don't know.)

Marriage to B.: great. Having a daughter: great.

Right now I am in a much better, very different, place than I feared back then that I would be. But I guess if I had to go through everything I went through to get here...

I think the most difficult part of the conversation is if I told my younger self about what would eventually happen to Dad, and how I am sure that if somehow he could start exercising even a little bit *before* he got a heart attack and became so ill, that he would not have such a nasty end. I was extremely angry with him back then for a variety of reasons and I don't think my younger self would be willing to try to talk to him about it, or to believe that eventually I would reconcile myself with him and become friendlier. I think my younger self would have said that it would serve him right.

I think I/she wouldn't have been willing to drop the feud with Dad's mom, even to get back in touch with all the relatives who dropped me like a rock for reasons I will probably never find out. But I/she might have been willing to make more of an effort to contact those relatives individually. If she had time.

[siderea]

Waitaminit. Where's *your* 15-yao dialog? :)
M

[cellio]

Oh, sorry. In the comments to the post I swiped this from. I guess I should have put that here too.

[hopeness.livejournal.com]

I thought about doing this but then I thought, uh oh, here there be dragons...

[aliza250.livejournal.com]

"Why on earth did you ever want to leave the East Coast?"

[zare-k.livejournal.com]

Well, 15-18 years ago I was 5-8 years old, still young enough to be disappointed that my dad worked in an office instead of having a cool job like being a magician (like the father of one of the other kids in choir). So to make this more interesting I'm going to set the time machine a mere 10 years back, to when I was 13 and just about to start high school.

I don't think a lot of the mundane particulars my life would come as any shock. Going to school back East, working in software, living in a city... I think my stated goal at the time was to be a lawyer (I saw myself as more of a humanities type then), but the broader goals have remained pretty constant. I might be disappointed at the trouble I've had getting "launched" career-wise, or maybe it wouldn't surprise me at all given how depressed I was then. I would definitely be surprised that I ended up being reasonably good at higher math. I'm not sure what my younger self would think of the whole poly thing. It's not something I had a label for at the time... I suspect I'd be pretty happy about it though for various reasons.

I do think I would be /very/ surprised at how well-adjusted (relatively speaking) I turned out. At the time I was mired in some pretty deep depressive muck, and still about a year away from learning that there was anything I could do about it. So I don't know if 13-year-old ommkarja would believe me if I told her that I did not commit suicide, did not flunk out of high school, found not one but two wonderful partners... oh, and I definitely don't think I'd believe that my relationship with my parents improved.

[indigodove.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...I was 19 15 years ago, and in college at my first university. I think my 19 year old self would be very reassured to talk to me and learn that ummm..."we" found a job, got married and would be mildly surprised that there are no kids yet. She'd be a lot more surprised at what "we" did in the intervening years, especially the time I spent away from organized religion.

But overall, I think she'd be pretty thrilled.

[gregbo.livejournal.com]

Every so often, I go to Google Groups to read Usenet posts I made back then. I also have a lot of email from back then saved up. (Some of it is not online.) Between the two, I can pretty much tell how I felt about certain things.

So, my younger self would probably be very disappointed at my current situation (unemployment), especially since the things I was doing back then were to try to make myself a better engineer -- someone who'd have a successful career. My younger self might, as a result, start to question whether there was any point to going to graduate school, and might have instead invested the money in Cisco. (I knew several people who worked there, and worked on a few projects with them, so I had a pretty good idea that it would be successful.)

My younger self would probably be surprised that I haven't been in a relationship in over four years (and haven't really looked around that much). Back then, it was a big issue.

Hmmm ... my younger self would probably be surprised at how improved my singing is, and that I'm learning to play the piano. He might not be too surprised that I took up ballroom dancing, but might be surprised that I don't play softball or roller skate any more.

[jducoeur]

Well, the exact year makes a significant difference. But saying 15 years ago, I would have been 24, and probably wouldn't have been surprised by much of the track.

I might be a bit surprised by the Masonry thing (I think I hadn't quite started yet), but not very -- I'd known for some years that Baron Steffan was involved, and was at least getting curious. Professionally, I'd probably breathe a sigh of relief that it was going to get more interesting over time. I'd be comforted but not surprised that my marriage has held together.

The only thing that would probably surprise me would be the notion of me winding up as one of the leaders in the local SCA. Intellectually it's fairly obvious -- it was always likely that I'd stay active, and having been highly involved for 21 of Carolingia's 33 years now it's almost inevitable. But at that point I'd only just gotten my AoA, and was still feeling quite new compared to most of the people around me...