Dear 5th grade me,
Sixth grade is totally going to suck. Totally. Your English teacher Ms. Teague will be awesome and your dad driving carpool with Elizabeth will be fun (he'll make you listen to Paul Harvey and you'll think he's weird but you'll cherish those memories.) You won't have many friends, the boys will call you pig nose in gym class, and you'll make a D in art because the teacher is a witch and she thinks your pottery skills are terrible. And in fact, your pottery skills are terrible. But you're a very conscientious student (for now. maybe hold on to some of that for high school) and a D in art just seems unbearable, unfathomable! You will go for after school tutorials and eventually Dad will have a conference with her because the witchy teacher scares Mom. Can you imagine!?
Dad will argue with the teacher that middle school art should be pass or fail, and that you should get a passing grade for the many hours you've put in and for giving your best effort making this godforsaken pottery .... and Dad will come home and tell Mom "that woman scares me!"... And you will get a D in sixth grade art class.
Also, while I'm breaking bad news, I'm sorry to tell you that you will not kiss a boy from senior year of high school until senior year of college. Yep, college is basically a dry spell on the kissing front. Bummer. But, it's okay because you'll eventually kiss Drew Prochaska, and nothing else will matter.
So now for some good news...sixth grade my not be stellar in the friends department, but eventually, you'll have incredible friendships. Lifelong friends that make your face hurt from laughing. Here's how to find them: look for the friends that will hoop and holler when your grandmother walks into the room because they think she's so fun. Look for the friends that will go on ski trips with your family and not think you're all completely nuts (or they'll think they belong with the crazy, either way, it works.) Look for the ones that will get you to ride 30 miles to Mount Vernon on a cruiser bike just because.
These are the friends who will drop everything when dad dies in a plane crash and literally move in and take out the trash and remind you to shower when everything in your world seems completely, utterly wrong. (Yes, Dad dies in a plane crash. That's all you really need to know for now, because if you knew more, you might not leave the house. And you might not understand that God is still good and everything is mostly okay.)
Look for the friends who will pray with you and for you and remain quiet when there is nothing to say and say the right things when it's time. Look for friends that won't care that you need a paper bag to help you breathe a few hours after you've been told the news. Look for them, because miraculously, though it may not feel like it today, they are there, they are nearer than you think.
Guess what? You will get kicked out of math class for sleeping in the back - how embarrassing! Maybe have some extra diet coke so you don't insult the poor teacher. By the way, be sure to take math at Blinn so that it doesn't hurt your GPA at A&M. Yes, you wind up at A&M - it sounds terrible to your little Longhorn heart right now, but you'll see. It's wonderful.
You won't have many regrets by the time you reach thirty, but you will regret not hugging your parents more - maybe don't yell "no!!!!" so often when mom goes in for a tight squeeze.
You will make countless mistakes and you will have many successes based on the way you handle those mistakes - and by the way you handle it when your loved ones make mistakes, too. Throw out grace like Dad used to throw candy from the airplane - without abandon, just to make others smile. It'll be memorable, promise.
Life is going to be really, really hard and really, really confusing. And it's also going to be glorious and wonderful and I cannot even tell you how incredible it will be to meet your two sons. To love them and feed them and be silly with them and pray with them and sing songs to them. The world is going to break your heart more than once- and God is going to be there in the hurt. Look for Him all around. Look for Him at church, in the scriptures, look for Him in the eyes of the people around you, the ones that feel like family but technically are just friends.
Learn to be better at apologizing. You're probably still going to suck at it when you're 30. Dads plane crash will help keep the small stuff in perspective - very much a "ain't nobody got time for that" kind of mentality. In fact, Mom will be diagnosed with Stage 3 uterine cancer and after a year or so you'll kind of forget it even happened, because of her positive attitude and because so much other stuff hits the fan. Mom will do radiation and have surgery and thankfully, she'll get to live. Others you know will fight like hell and not get the same chance ... do not try to make sense of it. But do allow yourself to feel whatever you're feeling, as hippie-dippie as that may sound. Pissed that John and Willie won't have their dad at their weddings? Weepy that Jay and Tom won't be hilarious grandfathers together? Allow yourself to feel those things. And then put on your boots, get your shit together, and keep on walkin, my friend.
You won't have many enemies, but you'll feel evil in your life. Evil knocking on your door, whispering for you to run along with it, to be fearful and vengeful and hateful and bitter. Lock the door, baby girl. Lock that door and tell the demons to run. Run, and hide. For the Lord is good, and He is faithful, and He is among us. There will be days, months, stretched into a year, that you just don't feel much for praying. Not while you're alone, anyway. Things will happen to people you love that you just cannot understand.
Pray anyway. Love anyway. Things will happen that cause you to question what it's all for... Live anyway. God doesn't promise we'll understand it all. But He promises to love us. He promises to hear our cries, our questions, our joyful prayers and our prayers of desperation. Whatever your heart feels, miserable or grateful, pray anyway. Love anyway.
And when you leave art class on report card day, give that old bitch the bird.
Okay, I know you won't, but gosh...I wish you would.
Love,
Thirty year old you
PS - get some leave-in conditioner sooner rather than later.
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