Letter To My Younger Self, Part II by Betsy Ashton

Dear Betsy,

Time to return to my letter to you and close out with some final thoughts on what you will experience.

You will endure trials you can't imagine. You will be physically attacked when you are a teacher. You will not let that stop you. You will fight back, not slink into darkness. You will report the attacker. When you are not satisfied with what the campus police are willing to do, you will go the the city police and to a city emergency room for tests. You will go to the coach of the man who attacked you and report his actions. You will show proof to back up your accusation. You will feel compensated when the man is thrown out of school (after a big game, which the team lost). You will realize that there is a god with a sense of justice when, years later, you Google his name and find he's been in prison for decades for the same crime you initially reported.

You will travel all over the United States, particularly in the West where you will visit nearly every National Park west of the Mississippi. You will travel and live in Japan, where you will learn what it is like to be a minority in a majority country, where people think nothing of following you on the street and comment on how tall you are and how long your hair is. You will not let them know you understand every word they say. You want to, but you know that it would be considered rude. And you don't want to be rude.

You will travel with your husband to Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, where you will continue to fall in love with him and with the beauty of the different countries. You will learn that traveling on the back of a motorcycle is immediate and sensory-overwhelming. You will visit every state east of the Mississippi on the motorcycle, and most of Eastern Canada as well.

You will achieve successes. You will find careers that let you live the way you want. You will enjoy your work, earn a fairly decent amount of money, and will retire to follow your heart's desire. You will become a full-time writer and produce the books you love to write.

You will find ways to share your thoughts and words with strangers through blogs like this, through social media, through your own blog. You may never be a best-selling author but you will not let that stop you from putting the next words on paper.

You will learn to live in the moment, will study yoga and Buddhism, will find walking meditation one of the best ways to relax. You will learn to let go of the negative, but it will be a daily battle for your entire life. Still, you will not give up the battle.

You will define success through your family and friends. You will realize that little matters as much as those who are close to you, who support you, who love you. You will love and lose some close to you, find that family members long lost have passed without you noticing. You will grieve for those who pass who remained close and understand that those who left you behind did so for their own selfish reasons, not because of you.

You will survive. You will survive well, by staying positive, by reaching out a hand to a stranger, by blowing kisses and leaving smiles in your wake.

Know that I will be with you every step on this journey. Enjoy it. It's the only journey you have in this life. You may have others, but you can only enjoy the present journey.

Love always,

An older, wiser you

Letter To My Younger Self, Part I by Betsy Ashton

Dear Betsy,

I have so much to tell you, not all of which you will want to hear. I have advice, which I'm sure you will not like, as well as memories of things you will do, both good and bad.

The first thing I'd ask you to think about is not what you want to be when grow up, but how you want to live. If you can define the how of living, the what will follow course. What I mean is if you want to live the life of the rich and famous, you could marry into money. You could also find a career that would lead to that fame and fortune.

What I would ask you to consider is the price of that fame and fortune. Do you want to give up your privacy for a life of avoiding the paparazzi? Do you want people to stare at you every time you go out in public, not let you eat your meal without someone commenting on your food choices? Do you want to hide behind closed blinds and high walls to protect your children and your privacy in a world that will increasingly blur lines between public and private lives, between what is acceptable behavior and what is intrusive and potentially dangerous intrusion.

Do you choose a life where you are fulfilled with your family and friends? You will marry, once to the wrong man, once to the right one. In the first case, you will not pay attention to what your friends and family say to warn you off the marriage before it happens. You will marry and realize as you walk down the aisle that you could still stop it. But you will not. You will learn from this so when the right man finally appears out of the darkness in a disco in Tokyo you will recognize him as the right person to have in your life.

You will inherit a family, not have your own children, and you will be just fine with that. You will discover three children who will become your closest friends as years go by and they grow up. You will not try to be their mother, since they already have that role filled, but you will be able to be a role model and friend who listens to hopes and fears.

You will have many friends over the years, but not all of them will be around forever. You might have the very best friend who comes into your life for a few days and then exits, leaving behind a footprint of a particular kind of friendship at a moment of need. You will have opportunities to be that five-day best friend often in your life. I hope you remember how important it was when your first five-minute best friend reached out a hand to help.

Some of your friends will turn out not to be as true as you had once believed. You will learn to identify those friends who are toxic, who are emotional vampires who suck the life out of you. When this happens, you will be called on to decide how you want to let the friendship go. You can cause a blow up that will harm both of you. Better, you can let the friendship whither slowly over time. Only you can decide which path to take. Choose wisely, and you will be comfortable with your decision. Choose unwisely, and you might feel better for the blow up but in the long run will realize you chose the wrong path.

To be continued on January 27.

What the Angels Have to Say

Autumn always makes me reassess my life goals. I had a spiritual intuitive read Angel cards for me several weeks ago. It was an interesting experience. I asked the question, “Should I continue writing?” The intuitive shuffled through her two decks of Angel cards and did a three-card spread.

The first card said I should turn off the “inner critic” when I write. You know, that little voice (that sometimes isn’t so little) that comments on every single word I put on the page. The one that questions character motivation, plot development, word choice, leads, endings… the list is endless. That inner critic always sounds like a very proper English teacher and she’s damn annoying most of the time. This card in the reading is giving me permission to tell Ms. Critic (maybe Sister Critic – after all, I went to Catholic schools for twelve years so…) to SHUT UP! I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it, but if I can, I might be able to write something that breaks the rules a little and really catches the attention of readers.

The second card said I should try to walk in the shoes of my characters so I can get at their true emotions. I will be able to write more griping reactions to story events if I can tap into the souls of my fictional friends. Now, characters are my writing strength – many of my reviews comment on my characters and how real they seem. I’m looking forward to connecting with them on a deeper level to see where that leads me… well, where it leads us, technically, I suppose. This may be a challenge for me as a person. I tend to not mess around with emotions all that much. I shrug off things that bother me and rarely have strong reactions, positive or negative, to events that occur in my life. I’m not sure why I do that, but I’ll have to push that aside if I want to get in touch better with my characters… and myself.

The final card said that I must write, because, as the intuitive said, “People need to read what you write.” She emphasized the word need and repeated this entire line more than once as if making sure I heard it and internalized it. I’d like to know what I should write that people need to read. Is it adult romance or young adult romance or both? Is it the political story my husband and I are working on? Is it the educational book on writing for teachers I’m currently editing? Is it poetry? Is it something I haven’t thought of writing yet?

I don’t have the answer to these questions, but I’m going to keep writing just the same. I’ve tried not writing in the past and it never sticks. Not when ideas are all around me, jumping in my lap, screaming in my ear, sometimes slapping me in the face. 

I’m a writer. I guess I knew that, but it was nice to have the Angels confirm it.

What would you ask the Angels?

Toodles,

Chris

www.christinedepetrillo.weebly.com Adult Romance

www.christymajor.weebly.com YA Romance
www.christineteaches.weebly.com Teaching Writing