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YahooYesterday afternoon, I was flipping through the pages of the September issue of ELLE Magazine, the one with 19-year-old starlet Lindsay Lohan on the cover. I don't know much about Lohan, having never seen any of her work; however, the article, in my opinion, wasn't a very flattering one, painting her as inconsiderate, a consummate partygoer, an attention-hound and prone to general bad behaviour. Tsk, tsk, I thought to myself. She's going to regret her actions when she's older. She should know better. I certainly knew better.
Well, on second thought, maybe I didn't. I mean, while I was never the party girl Lindsay Lohan appears to be, I suppose there are a few things I did when I was 19 (and even older) that didn't show the best judgment on my part. The truth is, as independent filmmaker Hervey Weinstein said of Lohan in the article, "We were all 20 once, weren't we?"
Indeed. For me, 19 was 20 years ago. Clearly any mistakes or poor decisions I made helped to shape the person I am today -- so, you know, no regrets -- however, wouldn't it be nice if the 39-year-old us could write letters from the future to the 19-year-old us, to help dodge some of those unfortunate mistakes we made? If it were possible, I think my letter would go something like this:
Dear Karen:
Bless your heart. Here you are, in your junior year of university, less than 2 years away from graduating and getting out in the wide world, and you're not even prepared, are you? No matter. The good news is that 20 years from now, you're going to be fine -- better than ever, actually -- but you're going to go through some tough times to get here. I'm writing this letter to you to help you keep an eye out for some of these challenges as you go through your life. You won't listen, of course -- stubborn thing -- but hey, you can't say I never warned you.
First of all, dearie, stop trying to please everybody, trying to be all things to all people. At this point, you've got all the tools it takes to trust your instincts, and your instincts are good ones.
Secondly, what's with all the dieting? Stop that, child, by every definition of the word, YOU ARE THIN. Instead of constantly starving yourself, get out there and get moving! Enthusiastic enjoyment of life will do far more for your body and self-image than denying yourself nourishment will. You're not going to believe this, but one day you're going to be an avid scuba diver. It's true. And you'll love it far more than worrying about being thin.
Sex isn't love. It's going to take you about a decade to figure this out, but try to grasp it now.
Oh, incidentally, one day, about 9 years from now, after your marriage to the guy you're currently seeing ends in divorce (oh, sweetie, yes, it will, I can't believe you don't see that), you're going to meet an attractive man in a coffee shop. He will tell you that he's a former-architect-turned-music-minister for his church, and you will be irresistibly drawn to his artistic sensibilities and proclamations of deep faith. And he will return your attention.
Run for the hills, honey. He's gay.
And finally, though you don't believe me now, everything you dislike about yourself -- the things that make you look differently, and think differently, and react differently than most -- are actually also manifestations of your greatest strengths. Find the power in each of these and harness it for good, rather than evil. You have more potential in you than you can ever imagine -- the trick is to imagine it.
That's it for now, I believe. I'm sure as time goes on, I'll think of more bits of advice to give you. In the meantime, however, enjoy your life -- because, as lives go, you really have one of the good ones.
With love,
Karen
What would you say to your 20-years-younger self?
Contributing Editor Karen Walrond also gets her blog on at Chookooloonks and at her green shopping blog, Emerald Market.
I wouldn't know where to begin
Erin Kotecki Vest August 18, 2006 - 10:02am
But the truth is, you are SO very right. As much as I'd like to shake those little pop tartlettes silly sometimes. I was just as stupid-if not more- at that age.
If ONLY we all could have warned ourselves. But, I guess we wouldn't be the people we turned out to be, right?
Politics & News Contributing Editor
Queen of Spain