I’ve been very unfair and judgmental toward one person in particular lately: younger me. I accuse her often of being naive, undiscerning, irresponsible. I blame her for many of my problems and struggles, utilizing variations of the tired formula “If you hadn’t done ‘x’, then ‘y’ wouldn’t have happened.” As if that will give me any solace from my anxieties, or free me from any trouble. It’s like, if I can’t jump back in time, then the next best thing is to, apparently, point out to tween/teenage/young adult Chris all the things she did “wrong”, which I know will hurt her. This is a tragic series of sentences to see reflected back at me right now. Honestly, I’m ashamed of this [ironically enough] childish behavior of mine.
Today I am, in theory, in the process of re-organizing my desk area at home. When it comes to paper or notebooks, I tend to keep a lot of things that are fairly old, especially my childhood journals. All my paper stuff including my journals are generally near my desk, so when I go to re-organize, I also want to take a “quick look” at my old journals…which becomes an event of reading through the entire journal and reflecting on the memories.
My re-org Achilles heel this afternoon was a prayer journal I had written primarily between the years 1999-2001. Reading through this journal was a humbling exercise for my currently proud, scorned, all-knowing adult self, who had expected to be re-acquainted with a boy-crazy, happy-go-lucky, self-centered pre-teen, who could’ve been helped greatly by my newly-acquired wisdom. What I found instead was someone who was thoughtful, earnest, and caring, who had questions and doubts, who loved God and her church, and who didn’t take hard decisions lightly. Sure, I was definitely hormonal and confused and a little flighty, but much more than that, I wanted to be a good person who honored God and brought out the best in others. I was also shy, and insecure, and afraid to make people sad. In the journal, I pray for specific people by name, that God would be with them during their hard times. I realized that, if young-me knew current-me, my name would’ve also been in that journal, because my struggles would have weighed on her heart.
Not only have I been short-sighted, but I have lost myself in the process of casting judgments upon myself. Instead of me teaching teen-me a thing or two, teen-me has had to remind me who I am and what the desires of my heart are. Because, as much as I may have changed or grown, the core passions of my life have remained relatively unchanged (with the exception of a few minor tweaks). Turns out, 14-year-old Chris needed to help me remember who I’ve been this whole lifetime, no matter what good or bad has come my way:
I need to apologize to myself somehow, and also move forward with a little more security in who I’ve been and in who I am now, knowing that I will continue to grow and learn and do my absolute best as I advance through this crazy and complicated life.