This is taken from Cheryl Strayed's Tiny Beautiful Things last chapter (or letter?) with the same title. I really really like the answer she gave to the question, and considering I'm a twentysomething, this is super relevant. I also think that it's still relevant for other age group; age is just a number after all.
What would you tell
your twentysomething self if you could talk to her now?
Stop worrying about whether you’re fat. You’re not fat. Or
rather, you’re sometimes a little bit fat, but who gives a shit? There is
nothing more boring and fruitless than a woman lamenting the fact that her
stomach is round. Feed yourself. Literally. The sort of people worthy of your
love will love you more for this, sweet pea.
In the middle of the night in the middle of your twenties
when your best woman friend crawls naked into your bed, straddles you, and
says, You should run away from me before
I devour you, believe her.
You are not a terrible person for wanting to break up with
someone you love. You don’t need a reason to leave. Wanting to leave is enough.
Leaving doesn’t mean you’re incapable of real love or that you’ll never love
anyone else again. It doesn’t mean you’re morally bankrupt or psychologically
demented or a nymphomaniac. It means you wish to change the terms of one
particular relationship. That’s all. Be brave enough to break your own heart.
When that really sweet but fucked-up gay couple invites you
over to their cool apartment to do Ecstasy with them, say no.
There are some things you can’t understand yet. Your life
will be a great and continuous unfolding. It’s good you’ve worked hard to
resolve childhood issues while in your twenties, but understand that what you
resolve will need to be resolved again. And again. You will come to know things
that can only be known with the wisdom of age and the grace of years. Most of
those things will have to do with forgiveness.
One evening you will be rolling around on the wooden floor
of your apartment with a man who will tell you he doesn’t have a condom. You will
smile in this spunky way that you think is hot and tell him to fuck you anyway.
This will be a mistake for which you alone will pay.
Don’t lament so much about how your career is going to turn
out. You don’t have a career. You have a life. Do the work. Keep the faith. Be
true blue. You are a writer because you write. Keep writing and quit your
bitching. Your book has a birthday. You don’t know what it is yet.
You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute
rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it.
Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything
else.
Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will
be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on
really hard and realize that there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small,
quiet room.
One hot afternoon during the era in which you’ve gotten
yourself ridiculously tangled up with heroin, you will be riding the bus and
thinking what a worthless piece of crap you are when a little girl will get on
the bus holding the strings of two purple balloons. She’ll offer you one of the
balloons, but you won’t take it because you believe you no longer have a right
to such tiny beautiful things. You’re wrong. You do.
Your assumptions about the lives of others are in direct
relation to your naïve pomposity. Many people you believe to be rich are not
rich. Many people you think have it easy worked hard for what they got. Many
people who seem to be gliding right along have suffered and are suffering. Many
people who appear to you to be old and stupidly saddled down with kids and cars
and houses were once every bit as hip and pompous as you.
When you meet a man in the doorway of a Mexican restaurant
who later kisses you while explaining that this kiss doesn’t “mean anything”
because, much as he likes you, he is not interested in having a relationship
with you or anyone right now, just laugh and kiss him back. Your daughter will
have his sense of humor. Your son will have his eyes.
The useless days will add up to something. The shitty
waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks.
The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people’s
diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your
arms or not. These things are your becoming.
One Christmas at the very beginning of your twenties when
your mother gives you a warm coat that she saved for months to buy, don’t look
at her sceptically after she tells you she thought the coat was perfect for
you. Don’t hold it up and say it’s longer than you like your coats to be and
too puffy and possible even too warm. Your mother will be dead by spring. That
coat will be the last gift she gave you. You will regret the small thing you
didn’t say for the rest of your life.
Say thank you.
