Some Thoughts to my Past Self

I’ve been thinking a lot about comparison lately. My greatest comparison is always to myself. I like to look back and pit myself against the past because my old self is an easy target. She didn’t have her shit together and wasn’t particularly optimistic about the future and on many levels, I’m much closer to contentment than I was a few years ago. I’m not kind to my past self. I’m very dismissive, I don’t have a lot of compassion for her. I’d like to tell her to stop being so dramatic and find balance but that’d be pretty hypocritical.

I would tell myself not to default to being alone but equally not to look for security in other people. Try not to keep swinging between the two. I’d tell myself to work on being too icy and too involved and acknowledge you are ok on your own but you don’t need to be.

I wouldn’t look down so much on love. It isn’t embarrassing to want people to care about you but equally it shouldn’t be so all consuming. Introduce some middle ground, have conviction in your opinions but not to the point of shutting everyone else out.

I’d tell myself not to settle on an identity, not to draw out the parameters of your personality with such rigid definition. Something doesn’t always need to be “your thing”. Trust that you’re interesting enough not to need such blatant markers of who you are and what you bring to the world. You’ll get everything you want but don’t expect that to solve everything.

Try not to hold so many grudges, it’s not chic or fun and will just make it harder to ever move on from anything. Stop buying shit clothes and definitely stop bleaching your hair. Sometimes it’s just not that deep.