Dec. 21: Future Self

December 21 – Future Self. Imagine yourself five years from now. What advice would you give your current self for the year ahead? (Bonus: Write a note to yourself 10 years ago. What would you tell your younger self?) (Author: Jenny Blake)

I cannot begin to imagine myself five years from now. So much has changed over the past year that it is hard to imagine myself in 6 months let a lone five years. This is something that I try to picture from time to time, where will we be living, what school will Zane go to, how many kids will we have, and how will I adjust to five years without my Dad.

In a dream world I would be able to stay at home with our kids and Zach would have a job where he actually gets paid what an electrical engineer should get paid. I would love to be a stay at home mom, possibly working part time or PRN. I honestly have no idea where we will be living. We go back and forth on that and no matter what we decide it is not fair for one of our families. In the end we will need to figure out what is the best decision for our family. Who knows??

The advice I would give myself for the year ahead is to stay focused on the positive, count the blessing that I do have instead of thinking about my misfortunes, and give myself time to mourn/heal, don't rush this because I know it is going to take some time and that is ok.

Now for a note to myself ten years ago. This is a tough one and something that I have thought about a lot over the past, probably 5 years or so.

I would tell my younger self a lot of things. Starting with the realization that I don't really want to be a doctor. If I had known this 10 years ago and I cannot express the amount of heartache I would have saved myself. This would have allowed me actually having fun in college instead of literally spending 5 hours in the library basically every day. I didn't make a ton of friends or do the normal "college" things because that wasn't what was important to me. Getting into medical school was all that mattered to me from the time I was in about the 5th grade until I took the MCAT and failed it, hard. My entire identity was wrapped up in this one goal for about a decade and it is one of my biggest regrets, so I reallly wish I could have told myself that, though I know that I wouldn't have listened.

Secondly, I would tell myself to spend more time with my family. I would tell myself to tell everyone I love what they mean to me every chance I get. I wouldn't say I was/am bad at this, but I have lost quite a few people who are very close to me over the past 10 years and I feel like there were some things I wish I would have said to my Grandma Dotter and my Dad before they died.

Mainly I would just tell myself that it was going to be a rough road ahead, but to stay strong in my faith, surround myself with positive people, and don't waste time with people who don't raise me up and support me. Oh and always return phone calls, even if you are exhausted from a long day at work, call your Dad back, you might not get another chance ( HUGE regret, tear).