3 little words

In ten years?

When I think of that, my first thought goes to all the ways I have changed and grown in the past ten years. I have matured and become a teenager.

What about these next 10 years though?

For those of us in high school, the next 10 years will bring many big changes in our lives.

I will be an adult. I will be learning who I am and what I want. I will be stepping out on my own and venturing into a new world. Not one my parents have created for me.

I will be making a name for myself, one created by hard work and the passions I have. I will be learning my place in this world. Where I fit into God’s great plan.

In ten years I will no longer be a kid. I will have to learn about what taxes, deductibles, and credit scores actually are. These next 10 years will be very important years in my life. The years where some of my best memories are created. The years where my mistakes will have great consequences but my triumphs will bear great rewards.

The next ten years will shape me into the person I am going to be.

These next 10 years are so unknown to me. I don’t know what is going to happen. I don’t know what career is the correct one for me. I don’t know if I have my life on the correct path.

Unknowns are terrifying and there are a lot of them in my next 10 years.

Have I correctly prepared for adulthood? Have I chosen the right people to help guide me through life? Have I studied hard enough to get into the college of my dreams? Have I picked the right career? Have I chosen the right place to live?

So many questions, so many unknowns.

The next 10 years will likely be the scariest 10 years of my life, but they will also likely be the most rewarding 10 years of my life. These next 10 years will grow and shape me into the person I am supposed to be.

In ten years, my kids will be adults, my now-puppies will be aged, and my husband and I will most likely be making the same joke about being “aged”, ourselves, though we’ll only be in our 50s. Our beloved cat, Brutus, will be gone (he’s an old boy, already), and my rabbits, guinea pigs, and canaries will also be sleeping a thousand fur or feathered sleeps.

While my introduction served as a bit of a cold splash of water in the face, I can fully acknowledge that ten years out will not just be marked by what’s been lost.

*Listen, though the thought of my kids’ childhood officially being over brings all of the melancholy feels of a 90s grunge album, I knew this about life. I signed up for it, even. I’m ready…I think.

If I truly think about what it may be like, decade-later me sitting on the precipice of 53, I know it’s important to project some good and beautiful things.

So, here goes:

In ten years, I hope I’ve learned how to be kinder to myself, that I’ve found a way to share, to save, some of the kindness I freely pour on others for myself, too.

In ten years, I hope my kids will be thriving and surrounded by more peace than chaos, by more confidence than confusion, as they embark on a life of adulting. I pray they will have cocooned themselves with others who think the very best of them, people who believe that very best to be deserved.

In ten years, I hope my husband is still my very best friend, that we still laugh at each other as we accidentally/intentionally get in each other’s way while getting ready in the morning. I also hope he sees the depths of his artistic talents (we do, already, Hunny).

I’m typing this on a chilly March morning, realizing, in ten years, my students will be in the middle of some of the same things I’m in the middle of. I hope they are confident, thriving, and able to do their very best to make the most sense of the trickier parts of life. I hope they are surrounded by love and self-compassion and good, great things. And I hope they drop their high school English teacher a line now and again to let her know how it’s all going.