Advice from a 26 Year Old
Who Finally Has Some Advice to Give
In the grand scheme of things, I haven’t lived very much life. However, I am the oldest I have ever been at this very moment and I think that speaks for something. For a long time, most of the advice I had to offer was something someone wise had told me at one point in my life - it was never hard earned. I now feel I have learned some things on my own that I would like to document and, consequently, share.
I’d like to start here:
I feel so far removed from the young girl I was at 16. Ten years have passed and I have, in that relatively small frame of time, been so many different versions of myself - most of whom I wasn’t ever really proud to be. Some might say that’s a sad confession to make, some might take the fact that they haven’t been a person to be very proud of to the grave with them. Not me. That would be my first bit of advice.
Mistakes and missteps are necessary in shaping who you are and it is, in fact, something to be proud of. To make a mistake, is to step into the great unknown, to take a chance and to fail, and it is crucial to growth. As a young girl, mistakes terrified me. Failing felt like an eternal mark on my immortal soul that every passerby could point and stare at as evidence that I was not - and would never be - good enough. Not good enough for friends. Not good enough to be a singer. Not good enough to love. Eventually, my insistence on removing the possibility of The Dreaded Mistake from my life became an inevitable storm of more mistakes than I can count and inescapable self-loathing. I was trapped. Until it all hit me like a truck one day while I was showering (the shower is a great place to reflect and connect with God).
One of the loveliest things about faith, whether you’re a believer or not, is that there is this sense of ‘what is meant to be will be'. Well, I suggest we take that even further, no matter what mistake you’ve made, no matter who you’ve been, each step and misstep was vital in the process of you becoming who you were always meant to be. That moment where you felt you lacked compassion- a moment that you play in your mind on a loop until you finally force yourself to sleep? Necessary for you to become a person who considers others before speaking. That moment where you made a bad, maybe even drunken, decision, you regret more than you would ever care to admit? A lesson in the importance of moderation, of deliberation, or maybe even the moment you decided on sobriety. That moment where you did not give yourself the respect you deserved? Well, that was necessary for you to learn that to love yourself is to value yourself and, when you value yourself, respect will follow close behind. Every mountain and valley of your life leads you to who you are, so learn to appreciate the journey there.
This brings me to my second bit of advice. You won’t know how to recognize healthy love until you’ve finally given it to yourself. This is a difficult one to explain, probably because it is so simple. Can I be honest? Jesus’s love taught me how to truly love myself. For my non-religious friends, please bear with me. To me, Jesus’s love, is a radical, all consuming, limitless and boundless kind of love - one that comes to us in so many different ways. His love says to me, I see you for everything you are and I love you. I’ve seen your mistakes and I love you. I’ve seen you be cruel and I love you. I’ve seen you in more pain than you have ever experienced before, from the beginning and the middle and the end you know not of, I have loved you and will love you always. It is a love of my existence. It is a love that says to me, “You are and, so, I love you.” It is a love I did not earn, could never earn, yet I have it. This kind of love is not easy to receive when you believe it to be true (ironically). I have always thought that love not only could be earned, but, in some ways, had to be. Some part of me felt I had to work hard to be loved, I couldn’t just be loved as I was, I had to change, stretch, bend, compromise, and even break myself into bite sized pieces if I were to ever truly be loved. Until I realized… the love I would’ve been receiving, after contorting myself into a woman I could not recognize, would’ve never been true love at all and I, sharp edges and all, wanted to be truly loved. I want to be truly loved. So I decided, no more changing the things about me that I love to be loved. I simply had to learn to finally give to myself what I only knew how to give to others. There is so much beauty in the capacity to love deeply - embrace it and extend that love to yourself while you’re at it.
Which brings me to my final piece of advice. Never underestimate the power of giving grace. Grace is not only a salve, it is life saving medicine. To give grace to yourself and to others is a radical form of love. Grace tells you, “You are not who you were yesterday and, tomorrow, you will not be who you are today. Thank God for that. Every day is a chance to live a little better, a little truer, and through grace, a little more free. So give yourself grace, dust yourself off and be excited for another chance to change, to learn and to grow.” All of us, whether you have faith or not, are experiencing life for the very first time. I think we all forget that learning doesn’t end when you’re out of school… life is school. Most of us don’t go into life thinking we’re going to be the worst possible versions of ourselves. As children, we are often idealistic, loving, needy, innocent, impressionable and life can take its toll. For better or for worse, life shapes us, but grace says, “It’s okay, child. You are still learning. They are still learning, too.” We are, all of us, overgrown babies, often stumbling about, trying to gain purchase, until eventually we can put one foot in front of the other - maybe even break into a sprint. So give grace and give it freely so that you, and others, may freely change and grow into who you were always meant to be.
Life can be beautiful if you let it. It’s messy, simple, complicated, awesome, awful and full of nonsensical contradictions and series of truths that coexist and fold in on themselves. However, one thing I know for sure is this: If I could do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing, because every moment led me here.
And I am so glad to be here.