Time after time

(Originally posted 9/18/2009)
On Sept. 19, 1999, I wrote a letter to myself, to be opened in ten years.

The letter was part of a kit that came with a James Dean calendar bought for me by my new boyfriend, Andy. We’d been dating two days when I spotted the calendar at a store in the new-ish Great Lakes Crossing mall. Calendar stores where everywhere then—the new millennium was coming.

When I opened the calendar I found the “time capsule kit” inside. It wasn’t much of a kit really, just an envelope with a sticker seal stating “sealed in the year 2000” (thought it wasn’t) and a sheet of paper with questions about my life at that point in time.

I sat on the edge of my bed—on the edge of my life, really—thinking of what to tell this future Laurel. She’d be old; Almost 28. She’d probably be married and maybe even have some kids. She’d have gone to college and would know the answers to so many of the unknowns that plagued me.

I don’t remember what I wrote back then, in 1999. I still have the letter though, and tomorrow, in the skin of this older me, I’ll read who I used to be.

Anyway, it got me thinking about how I’d never be able to answer that letter. I can’t send a reply to myself, ten years ago. And besides, what would I say if I could? That became the question gnawing at my brain: What would I want to tell myself in the past about the future I’ve experienced?

My first thought, oddly, was to warn past-Laurel (PL, I’ll call her) about June 5, 2004, when I unexpectedly slipped on the grass at my brother-in-law’s house in Penn. and broke my leg and ankle in three places. It had required a steel plate and eight screws to fix, not to mention three months on crutches and being left unable to work as a barista at Starbucks. I was totally broke, totally dependent on others to help me with basic tasks, and desperately unhappy. In short, it sucked.

Yep, I’d definitely have to want PL about that misadventure.

But then I thought about it. Breaking my leg wasn’t fun, but it was necessary in a weird way. For starters, I was heading into my final semester at Oakland University, taking 20 credits, working two jobs and doing my internship at the Oakland Press. If I hadn’t been forced to take it easy all summer I doubt I could have powered through such a schedule.

Also, the experience gave me insight as to what it’s like to lose an ability to take for granted. While I kind of grabbed that concept at the time, it never fully came to fruition until I began doing my volunteer work for hospice. The man I visit each week is bed-bound. His wife is an amazing person and loves him as much as anyone can love a person, but once in a while she’ll forget to grab him something he’s been wanting at her weekly trip to the grocery store. The only time she can leave to run that errand is the few hours I’m there each week, so it means my friend will have to go another week without that item.

Now, dumb as it sounds, if I hadn’t experienced the frustration of being unable to go get the basic things you need in life when the mood strikes, I’d think “hey, homeboy can go a week until that Diet Coke finds its way in the house.” But now… Now I know there’s no way in hell that man is going to wait another hour for that pop, because I will take my fully functioning body to the store down the road and bring it back ASAP. Because I know. I know that when life is reduced to one room and a series of predictable moments, the little things count. They count big time. Sometimes a whole world hinges on a Diet Coke. And my stupid broken leg taught me that.

So PL shouldn’t be warned, because it was for the best. But what about the various other misadventures of my early 20s?

Should I tell her not to sweat getting dumped by Andy because we end up together and happy? No, that pain was a needed growing experience. Sometimes you can’t appreciate people until you lose them for a while.

Okay then, should I tell her not to stress so much about doing well at college because it all kind of works out? No, fear has always been the thing that keeps me more motivated than lazy. If I knew it’d be okay
I wouldn’t try hard enough to make it through school, and would end up flunking out.

Maybe I’d tell her not to worry so much about Kathryn. That she’d be born healthy and happy and we’d be okay. But honestly, I don’t know that I would ever be able to relax in that way, letter from the future or not.

The major and not-so-major events and inconveniences of the past decade flitted through my memory and I tried to think what, if anything, I could tell PL.

I posed the question to Andy. “What would you tell yourself if you could talk to you of ten years ago?” I asked. I expected something like “buy stock in Apple before iPods were launched,” or “find Megan Fox’s phone number.” But instead he seemed to think about it for a second.

“Hug Spooky more,” he said.

Spooky was our cat that died from feline leukemia shortly after Kat was born. He was gentle and stupid and always seemed somehow breakable. I was never mean to him, but I always wish I’d been a bit kinder.

You can’t stop death like that. Can’t change it. And to know the specifics would only turn the months into a morbid countdown. But to know to just show more love, I think that would be a good thing.

So, while I forget what PL had to say to me, here is my letter to her:

Dear PL (Past Laurel),
You are young and you are stupid, but life holds beautiful things for you. I can’t give you specifics or warnings, but I can tell you this:
Hug more. Love more. Be more forgiving. Trust that what is is what must be. Know it works out as it should.
Be kind to Spooky.
Trust your instincts. Enjoy the ride.
Best,
FL
(Future Laurel)

PS: Buy stock in Apple before they launch the iPod.