To Myself 10 Years Ago

This past decade was the first of my adult life, and as such was characterized by change and growth. If you had asked the Kristine of 2010 what she expected her life to be like in 2020, she could not have even imagined many of the turns that these ten years have taken.

During that time, I moved away from home to university, traveled out of the country, graduated with a B.A., lived on the other side of the world for four years, and underwent a huge amount of learning — about myself and about the world around me.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve taken some time to look back and write down some of the changes I’ve undergone throughout this formative decade. Obviously, some of those things I wrote down were extremely personal, but I wanted to share a few of the rest.

Reflecting on My 10-Years-Ago Self

Ten years ago:

• I was halfway through my senior year of high school and trying to decide what college to attend.
• I was vaguely interested in travel and even living overseas someday, but had never been outside the USA.
• I struggled a lot with self-esteem and was only beginning to form my personal worldview.
• I thought I had a decent idea of the kind of life I wanted and what I was going to do professionally. (I was wrong.)
• I definitely didn’t want to follow the example of many women in my family and become a teacher. (See the previous point.)
• I hated public speaking (hence not wanting to teach). People always said it would get easier with practice, but I did not believe them. Nor did I want to practice until it got easier.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I’m a completely different person now than I was at the start of 2010, because when I look back at myself, I can see the seeds of who I am today. But it’s certainly true that many, perhaps even all, of those seeds have grown, branched out, and bloomed into shapes, colors, and directions I couldn’t have expected. And perhaps one could even say that some branches have been grafted on from outside sources. In any case, 2010 Kristine would still recognize 2020 Kristine, but she would be very much taken by surprise.

What I Would Say to My Younger Self

As the common question asks, would I change things about my ten-years-ago self if I had the power? Would I make different choices if I could travel back a decade and live the 2010s again?

Perhaps not.

Yes, there are things about the past ten years that I regret or that I wish I had handled differently. However, now that I have emerged on the other side in 2020, I can see how most of my experiences have shaped my perspective and understanding of the world. Even painful lessons have value — sometimes they’re even the most valuable of all.

There are some things I would want to help my younger self understand, if I could — lessons about confidence, empathy, and self-awareness. But here’s the thing: these are all lessons I had to learn over time and through personal experience. Many of them were things that people told me, or that I read somewhere. But I never would have understood them if I didn’t have to wrestle with them personally.

Still, here is what I would say to my younger self if I had the chance:

• It’s okay not to know or understand everything right now. You still have so much time to learn, and so much of the world to see. Things aren’t going to happen the way you expect or think you want, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
• I know it sounds cliche, but don’t take what you have right now for granted — especially the people you care about. Tragedy really can happen to anyone.
• Saying this is one thing; believing it is another — but you don’t need to try to hide or change parts of who you are to make people like you more. You are worth knowing just as you are, and you have the right to be happy just as much as everyone else does.

Ultimately, of course, these are lessons I have managed to learn, even without a message from the future, though some were learned through much harsher means than others. And I know that, no matter how much I have already learned in this first decade of my adulthood, I still have much more to continue learning.

So here’s to the next one. Here’s to myself in 2010: unaware of all that would change and all that I would become. And to myself in 2020: just as uncertain about the future, but perhaps even more excited and hope-filled. And here’s to the person I will be in 2030: may I progress further into maturity without losing the essence of who I am.