While our connection has not been that strong recently, know that I pay attention to your posts on social media and your comments elsewhere. I am thinking of you and wishing you well.
I don’t know the present you that well. I knew an older version. It is that person in the past, that child, that young adult, to whom I’d like to talk today. May I? Would you put that earlier you on the line?
My memories of you as a young person are clear. I found you likable and engaging. More than that, I recall that you had strong feelings. You fought against unfairness! You complained about teachers or other adults who didn’t treat kids well. Your cry of “that’s not fair” was far more than most people your age. Sometimes, you would stand up for someone and, I could tell, sometimes the price was too high. You wanted to come to their defense, but couldn’t.
You really got upset if you thought people were not being truthful or entirely truthful to you – especially adults you trusted. I remember that you struggled when you wanted to defend a friend who got in trouble for lying, but you were also angry with them. You knew that truth and trust go hand and hand. You did not desire trust so much that you allowed yourself to be taken advantage of like other kids, who just went along with the crowd. If you didn’t feel safe, if you didn’t trust, if you didn’t believe you were being told the truth, you went your own way. I admired that about you and tried to be that way myself.
Our friends are reflections of ourselves. I remember hearing about how you did some friendship reorganization. Did I get that term from you? Did you coin that? Was it in music class where you sang a song that said, “a man is judged by the company he keeps?” You struggled to find friends who treated you well; who would be the same with you when it was just the two of you as they would be after school or on the bus.
And as you were going through that friendquake, I saw the kind, compassionate, and empathetic side of you. Is that part of you still there? I hope it is. I remember how you reached out to folks who needed a hand. How you did little things that were gentle and thoughtful for both your peers and others. I knew that you cared if I wasn’t feeling good or if someone was struggling or hurting. You didn’t make a show of it, and I am sure some people might have missed it, but it caught my attention when you showed it to me. Your empathy, on an occasion that I still find painful, was something I still treasure and is one of my strongest links to you.
The reason I am writing to your younger self is that I need those aspects of you now. I need the strengths you developed long before many of the rest of us did. Frankly, all of us need you now. We need people who value truth and trust, want strong and steady friends, are kind, compassionate, and thoughtful. I want to live in a world, in a country, of people like you, who have strong values and really live them out. We need people who aren’t selfish but give to others; we need people who demand the truth and then act on it. We need people who want fair and honest dealings for everyone!
I don’t know if that younger self can write me back. Is that an unfair request? I am just asking for a glimpse, a moment, or even a reawakening of the parts of you that drew me to you so long again when you were young and I was - younger.
We are living in an unsteady world. We are experiencing a civilization-quake. The company we keep, the choices we make, the values we hold will determine whether we grow and thrive, or get sick and fall apart.
I still trust that younger you. I hold that younger you close to my heart especially this coming week, this election.
Thank that person for me. Thank you for being that person and thank you for reading this too long letter. I needed to write it to remind myself that people like you are out there.
My resolve is back. I know what I must do.
Thank you for guiding me there,
Your Friend
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