Dear Us: On journalling, part 2

Last week’s Dear Diary 101 left me wanting. Or perhaps “found me wanting” would be more accurate.

It wasn’t enough: journal to declutter your mind and untangle emotions; journal to put the inside of you in a safe place outside of you so you don’t have to carry it around all the time.

All this is true, but where to begin?

At some point, someone has given almost all of us this piece of advice: write a letter to your younger self.

What’s so special about my younger self? Why does she deserve my communication when there are so many people alive and about in today-time who I really should get in touch with? Aged aunts, former colleagues, the boss of the person who was mean to me in a shop, to name but a few.

Still, younger me and, indeed, younger you, are people who need our attention. More than not, the young people we were didn’t get the best of us. We were – not to be unkind – young. We did not know better. Now we do. Or are trying to.

Yes, I have always felt more than a little absurd getting in touch with my 14-year-old self, but not once have I regretted it. For pain, frustration, anger, death-by-embarrassment, 14 is my sweet spot.

Find yours. You’re not limited to one. Choose as many as you like. Fumble towards your introduction, but keep going, even if it feels like you’re writing to a stranger (and there is an above-average chance it will feel like that).

I like to tell my younger self how I’m doing now. The cats are hooligans, the dog is on a diet, the house is a travesty, but I’m doing well and fixing things as they break – be they ankles or armchairs.

And then, as I start to feel a bit more comfortable, I tell her I’m sorry I was always so uncompromisingly hard on her. I didn’t know that I didn’t need to be all things to all people. I didn’t know anything about self-kindness or self-preservation. I have also learned to tell her nice things.

This can go on forever. Even writing about writing about it feels simultaneously awkward and soothing. Fourteen, right? Am I right?

Recently a wise woman told me she wanted to write a letter to her future self. And that she wished when she was younger she’d written to the person she is now.

A letter. To your older self. What? How? How absolutely brilliant.

We’re not talking about setting goals or making bucket lists. This is could be an extraordinary kindness to an aging you – a chance to remind the older, more tired, less patient, wrathful you (you know, if that happens to be how you think you'll turn out) that you were not always so…that way.

Don’t panic. That's the big message I’ve come up with for older me. Be as kind as you can be to yourself. Do no harm, especially to strangers, because you can’t make it up to them later. And remember to use sunscreen.

I so desperately want an older me to remember how easy it is to have both fun and sanity if you have friends. Friendships take work, but it’s good work if you can find it. Too often age distances us from everything that is not professional or family. And for reasons unknown to me, that is always acceptable in a way that attention to friendships is not.

Now, while I still know, I want to write notes about how to make tea the way I like it and what movies cheer me up, in case I forget one day.

I knew a woman who found solace in the memory lapses of age by returning to her favourite books. She could no longer remember the stories, only that she had enjoyed them. And so she spent her later years re-enjoying the best tales of her reading life.

I think that is most what younger me – today me – has to offer my future self: indications that I will like this thing I have forgotten. If only I knew now what my mind is likely to misplace so I might write it down now.

And that’s just talking about talking about ourselves. Write the letters you’ll never send to exes and dead parents. Write to your fears and pain and confusion and put them in their places.

Say goodbye, say hello, say you need help. Start the conversations you need to have.

Remember to talk to your doctor or therapist if you want to know more about what you read here. In many cases, there’s no single solution or diagnosis to a mental health concern. Many people suffer from more than one condition.