Grace for the Young Woman That I Was
A vulnerable conversation across time and what I finally understand now.
I didn’t expect her to smell like Love Spell, but then I remembered that was her second favorite scent. I tried to remember what the first one was from Victoria’s Secret, but the chair scratching the floor as she plopped down onto the seat interrupted my thoughts.
She had on a green Hollister shirt, a small silver cross necklace, and cubic zirconia stud earrings. Then I noticed her long straight black hair hovering in front of half her face. She would faithfully get her hair straightened every two weeks with her old school stylist using that hot comb and marcels.
She always allowed her hair to dangle in front of her face. Hiding. Trying to not be seen. Behind the scenes and out of the way was safe. No one would see her, and no one would bother her if she stayed there as she believed that the only true form of safety came from being invisible.
“Here,” I leaned over the small table to pull her hair back behind her ear a bit.
She meekly smiled, “Yea, I’m trying to do a better job of that.”
“Yes, I know,” I smiled at her warmly. “I remember all too clearly. Your confidence journey was quite interesting when I think about it nowadays of where you were and what made you fearful.”
“Soooo what did you want to tell me?” I could tell this was her way to brush past talking about fears but I knew that it would come up again.
I took a deep breath, slightly shaking my head trying to get my first sentence out, “I just want you to know that it’s okay that you don’t have anything figured out right now and that it’s okay to make mistakes.”
She scoffs gently, shrugs and looks away, “Are you sure? I don’t know what job I want. I don’t even have a major that I like right now.”
“Okay,” I decided to pivot in the moment, “You know what, let’s start there. Would you like for me to share a little bit in how things turn out?”
Her eyes light up with a small curious smile, “Sure, because right now I feel like I’m failing. Everyone at least knows something of what they want to do and I don’t.”
“Oh no no no…you’re definitely not failing. It’s just that things aren’t clear yet and that’s okay. You’re so young! I know you keep putting pressure on yourself by saying since you’re an adult now, you need a solid plan, but trust me girlie, all that pressure is unnecessary.”
”Unnecessary?” she shot me a confused look. “How?”
”Well you’ve always been the ambitious type. I mean what 8 year old stays up to 1am to finish a project for school to meet her perfectionist expectation of completion? You! Girl you just being you was a guarantee in itself that you would do well. You’re smart, but you also try really hard. You are not afraid to ask questions, and you enjoy learning. Finding your niche in what you want to do for a career is challenging but only because you haven’t gotten to know yourself yet. You’re only who you think your parents want you to be. You haven’t truly discovered who you really are.
You see, in your teen years, you were kind of in your parents’ shadow. You didn’t really feel independent enough for people to know you just as Rachel. You were always identified as being Elder’s daughter, Minister’s daughter, Little Anderson etc. I know you remember all the nicknames. Many people didn’t really know you. They just knew you through who your parents were since they were in leadership.
But college is when you broke away and had to really discover who you were. You had to learn about your preferences. Learn what you did and don’t want in friendships and relationships. Learn to identify your own values and how to live those values. Learn how to set and reinforce boundaries. Learn how to speak up for yourself. Learn to be okay with who you are. And girl, when I tell you so much of that is stuff I’ve only really learned in the last few years…it’s been a journey!
All of us adults are doing the best we can with what we know. No one person has it all figured out. I don’t care how much they smile or how many people seem to like them. We all have our struggles. And we all are responsible for how we learn to heal and grow through them.
“I mean,” she said meekly barely above a whisper. “I feel like I know who I am.”
”Of course you do. That’s your teenage brain that hasn’t lived life yet enough to realize how much you don’t know yet about yourself.”
She laughs, “You’re starting to sound like Dad.”
“I know,” I shrugged and chuckled. “I’m not trying to sound like him, but it’s true.”
“So okay what did you end up doing? Tell me what happens. Something must be good because you have locs and a nose ring! Did that hurt? What did Mom and Dad say about that?” she asked in a bubbling gasp of excitement.
“Well I didn’t do this,” I pointed to my left nostril, “until my 30s! By then it didn’t matter what my parents would say about it. The nose ring just felt like a pinch, no pain, until my ring got caught on it by accident. THAT was pain. But anyway, what’s funny is that when you begin to prioritize healing, you start to do all the things that you were scared to do as a kid or teenager.”
“Yea I can’t believe you really did it. I like it!” she grinned deviously.
“Why thank you my dear. So happy that you approve!” I smiled and flipped my locs back dramatically to show off its length. We both laughed.
“But I’ll tell you a few things. You did decide on a major. Psychology. The only science that you ever liked. You were going to become a therapist, but you realized that you may not have the mental capacity to handle such heaviness day in and day out. So you ended up becoming an instructional designer and then eventually an internal coach!”
“Instructional designer,” she looked at me puzzled. “What kind of design is that? I’ve never heard of that before.”
“Yea you didn’t know it existed until Junior year of college. But you jumped on it to pivot a bit in trying to learn more about that career path. You graduated. Eventually got a job at a warehouse as a trainer. Then you started your Master’s program online. You used student loans to download Storyline and taught yourself the program. Then you got an internship at one of the biggest nonprofits in the United States. I tell people that they liked you enough to keep you. They valued your Storyline experience, and you ended up leaving your warehouse trainer job to work there.”
“Wait wait wait, you were in school online, doing an internship, and working full time at the same time?”
“Yes,” I let out a heavy sigh. “Please refrain from asking any more questions about it because when I tell you my memory only can recall a blur. I do remember counting down the days to the end of my Master’s program. I was holding on for dear life, chile.”
“But you did it though!” she shrugged with a smile.
“Yep, that I did. 2016 is when I graduated with my masters. I was just looking at pictures from that day in my OneDrive. Family came out to celebrate. My ex-fiancé-”
“Your ex-fiancé? You didn’t get married?”
“HA!” I threw my head back to laugh only to meet my eyes at her stunned gaze again patiently waiting for context. “Ok so yea long story short, I met a guy and thought he was the one. We got engaged. And I realized from a lot of reflection and prayer that maybe we aren’t as good of a fit together as much as I wanted us to be to have a healthy marriage. God showed me that it was time to move on and trust Him. So I did.”
“Do you miss him? Are you married now?”
“Oh honey,” I struggled to keep my face neutral at her first question. “I’m quite alright. We definitely have grown all the way apart. But as for your second question, no, I’m not married. I’m not even in a relationship.“
“Wait…how old are you again?” her face frowned up as she processed everything I shared.
“I’m 36.”
“And you’re not married yet?”
I paused. I knew she was going to get to this question.
“Nope.”
“Why?”
”Ah if only giving answers was as easy as asking questions!” I smiled looking away. I had prepared for this question and practiced it so it was time to share it.
“I have made God a priority in my life. My Christian faith is what I live by diligently. I’m by no means perfect. I have plenty of stories of mistakes made to prove it! However, there are some things that I practice and believe in that do make things a little more challenging. For example, I am abstinent until marriage. That’s definitely a deal breaker for many guys. And then when it wasn’t, it was because of something that just wasn’t aligned between us. It may be relationship expectations as I seek true partnership where my feelings are valued. It would be the level of emotional intelligence that I see him have. It might be his resistance to therapy. It at times would be boundaries that I had set that he may overstep. I have family members that joke about how quickly I’ll end something if it seems like it’s not working out and they-”
“You don’t think,” she interrupted me, “that maybe…you’re just being too picky though?” she asked innocently.
I smiled softly. Hearing other people ask you this is much different from when your younger self asks this.
“Oh no dear. I think what I’m asking for is pretty simple. But when I could have met the right one, I was healing a pain from being with the wrong one and didn’t have the capacity to explore it. So now, I just haven’t met the right one now that I’m in a very healed place. But even better than that, I’ve learned to decenter my focus on marriage. So my relationship status shouldn’t even be the main thing we talk about in my opinion. There’s more to who I am than who is sharing a bed with me. Once you start liberating yourself from the thought that your life revolves around the timing of getting married and having kids and instead focus more on how you can truly enjoy the most out of life as you fulfill your purpose, things become so much more peaceful.”
I smiled widely. My therapist and I worked so hard to get to this sense of self and contentment. She would be proud. I need to make sure I tell her that in my next session.
“Sooo you’re okay with that?” she asked.
Of course, she’s going deeper into this. Always had unlimited questions to ask.
“Yes! I continued to prioritize my walk with Christ. So many prayers, tears, bible study, worship songs echoing in the house, sermons playing in my ear as I walk my dog, getting up early to serve during service, just all the things. I’ve spiritually grown in more ways than I imagined. I also had to unlearn some things so that I could see God in the right way to have a healthy spiritual relationship with Him.
Then I started focusing on my mental health. I’m actually going into my 6th year of therapy and that’s been a godsend for me. It taught me about boundaries. It taught me about healthy dating. It brought relief in identifying a depressive disorder diagnosis that helped make so much sense out of struggles I had endured. It taught me ways that I could learn more about myself so that I could learn to accept myself. I learned how to trust myself more. And recently one of the biggest things is that I learned how to heal.
Healing is going to be a journey. You’re going to heal in how you see God. You’re going to heal in how you see yourself. You’re going to heal in how you see others. You’re going to heal from…well…”
Oh how did I get here.
It was not in the plan to make any mention of this but peering into her inquisitive brown eyes, I knew I couldn’t backtrack now.
“Um there’s a traumatic experience…” my voice lowered, “that you’re going to have while you’re in college… that you’re going to keep to yourself for many years. You’re going to think you’ve healed from it but some things will happen much later that will help you to see that maybe you’re not as healed as much as you thought. So you’re going to go through EMDR therapy at 36 and it’s going to be like someone turned on a light for you. It’s going to be the moment where you really felt free.”
She shifted in her seat nervously with concerned eyes and furrowed brows, "I’m kind of feeling a little scared now.”
I gently grabbed her hand over the table, ”Don’t be.”
I paused thoughtfully allowing myself to be distracted by her undone nails. She had such a bad habit of picking on her nails and was too broke for regular nail appointments. I held her hand in mine, my gel-x manicured tips done by me just the other day, resting against her chipped blue nail polish.
”You were young. You did the best you could with what you knew and you’re going to heal from it. Just know that at this point, I had to learn to give you grace that simply you’re not going to know how to handle everything and you’re not going to do everything right.”
I let out a heavy sigh as I gently released her hand back on to the table, “I had to learn to not be so hard on you expecting you to have a 36-year-old-level problem-solving skills in an 18-year-old mind. So I have all the grace for you in the good decisions and the not so good decisions that you made back then.”
“That many bad decisions huh?” she halfway smirked.
“Haha no no no, it’s not all bad. Just could have made a few better ones. But again I’m not holding that against you. You were young. Just starting to break away from the super sheltered life that you were raised in. Growing pains into adulthood were destined to happen. Besides, it’s because of what you went through overall through everything that has made you into who you are today. And honestly, I’m quite proud of how you turned out.”
“So you’re thanking… yourself?” she side-eyed me with smile.
“Yes, I would like to thank me!” I confidently proclaimed hitting my hand against my chest. We both chuckled.
“But you know why I thank me? I prayed for God to help me and He did. I kept going. I picked myself up. Dusted myself off. Felt the shame. Felt the embarrassment. Felt the fear. Felt the insecurities. Felt the imposter syndrome. And got up and did it anyway. I’ve made it through traumas, chaotic relationships, a house fire...”
“A house fire? Mom and Dad’s house?”
“Oh no my first house. Everything had either fire damage, water damage, or smoke damage. But listen I don’t want to give you a bunch of details of what’s to come. But what I do want to tell you is that you’re stronger than you think. You’re smarter than you think. And you have a resilience that you’re going to be proud of by my age. You’re going to be in a career that you adore so much that you get nervous solely because you really really want to do it extremely well and you care so much about each client you’re assigned.
You’re going to have a house in a neighborhood that you never imagined you’ll be able to afford by yourself. You’re going to have a dog that’s going to be the sweetest little pup that will tear up every paper towel he can find. You’re going to have parents that love you but that you will have to learn how to have a healthy balanced level of detachment as you become their adult daughter, and they will have to learn the same.
Your friend circle is going to change, but you’re going to have a circle of friends that provides such a beautiful sense of community that it will make you more appreciative of the fact that not everyone is supposed to be in your life for a lifetime. Sometimes it’s just a season and that’s okay. You’re not going to knock anyone that left your life because looking back you realized what a blessing it was to have them when you needed them most. That doesn’t make you or the other person bad at all. It just means that you both grew.
But more than anything, I hope you know that life keeps going. You will never ‘arrive’. You’ll just find yourself in new challenges and environments as you continue to evolve and mature that are going to bring whatever is in you, out of you. Then you have to decide if you like what you see and whether or not you’re going to change it.
She nodded while glancing down at her red Razr flip phone whose tiny screen just lit up.
“Well I have to go. Any last few pieces of advice?”
I paused, “Yes. Learn who you are and what you value. Then set boundaries to protect both. You’ll never regret setting boundaries but you will regret not reinforcing them. Accept help in doing this because it is hard work but is so worth it. Jesus and therapy are a winning combination. Keep going. You’ll be fine. God is going to keep his hand on you no matter what. Always remember that.”
When is the last time that you met with your younger self?
What would you tell them now that you have learned more?
Maybe take a few moments to meet with yours.
