Letter to Me: Yesteryear-ish Younger Self (Tanya)

This post will be short because I am writing it after I got home from a long day of day and night job, and my brain is half working best case scenario (when tired, I also have a bigger flair for the drama). I will do my best to get something remotely comprehensible posted.....so here-it-goes.

Okay, so I saw this book the other day that completely stopped me in my tracks (shopping for toothpaste or something... yes this was at HyVee Grocery Store but they really do have some cool books). The book I'm referencing is called What I Know Now: Letters to My Younger Self by Ellen Spragins. I thumbed through it quickly to get the basic jest, and I did enough "speed reading" to know I like it. One of the seventeen AMAZING women featured in the book (if I counted correctly) is Olympia Dukakis, and in her featured letter she wrote some great things such as "a fine mess you've gotten yourself into this time" as well as "everyone gets kicked down the stairs." So I thought, hey, I will write myself a letter, sort of along these lines. Sureo, I've been kicked down some serious stairs or more accurately tripped down most of those stairs.......

Dear Tanner May, T-Bop, Tangy, TC,

You are one stubborn lady, and one day you will drive these stubborn bones of yours in ways you never imagined possible. Your Grandma Juanita didn't call you "bullheaded" for nothin'! Although you may find yourself plowing through packs of Marlboro Lights for more years than you should, ruminating on the trials of the mini-world you've been exposed to, be prepared that stuff will keep happening to make you ball up in a chair wanting to go idle until life's muck passes through, but you won't. You will find that if you keep putting one foot in front of the other or at least doing a tiny shuffle-along, you will not be just fine but rather really cool-fine. You will learn over and over that your dear father "Papa Cecil" is right when he says "some people that'd bother, but not us...right?!" You will actually start thinking this naturally and immediately when those victimy things happens and smile inherently at odd moments when any reasonable realist person would be beckoning the troops or pursuing an appeal. The coolest part is that you will learn to want to get over yourself, but, and this is a notable but, you will struggle with this. Oh will there be some sorry feelings and firey moments, and you'll learn hard lessons like Karma really is a bitch. Lucky for you, you have amazing pals. These pals will stick with you for the long haul marathon no matter what your performance, so be good to them, always remember your pallies. And Young Person, my inner pal, you will learn along the way that you are so un-awesomely imperfect and irregular that you can't imagine or ask for life any other way. Your mistakes will be mountains, but you will try harder each time to be better than the last, make fewer intentional mistakes and turn all the mountains into nothing less than groovy hills. Some of your mountains, well, you may always regret; keep moving forward, keep shuffling no matter. Keep moving, always listen to your heart, listen to the pulse of your guts, and life really will quiet the muck.

Rock on, and high five a lot of people along the way. This is what you are born to do.

Much love,

Tanya