Just a little background here - I'm the youngest of the 'first' family and my half-sister was born when I was 18. I don't much like kids - I am not comfortable around them and so mostly I just stayed away from her - then when I was 26 and she was 8, I moved away. My involvement in her life has been pretty sporadic but much closer than my both my relationship and hers with our older sister and her relationship with my brother. I had been hoping that with moving back here, we could get to know each other better before I left - it's turned out though that next Tuesday may very well be the last time I ever see her (no, not because I think she's going to die, but if I don't come back to Canada and/or she's posted somewhere when I am here ? it's a very real possibility.) We have a family bbq and the next day she graduates high school, followed by a plane ride the day after to a life (at least for the next 7 years) with the Canadian military. There are so many things I want to say to her but I've written this letter to give her on Tuesday in the hope that I've said the most important things. PLEASE let me know if there are any horrifying and/or glaring errors or truly bad advice or if I'm utterly delusional (well, in a bad way).
I really sort of liked the idea of the 'graduation letter' where the ‘older and wiser’ (ha) person tells you what they want for you and gives you all this great advice. But then, when I sat down to write it I thought,
"Well, I want Quinn to be happy. Really deep-down happy." and,
“Hmm, I don't think I have any earthshattering advice and why on earth would my advice be any good, she's already pretty smart."
So, this almost ended right there.
But, instead, I'm just going to tell you everything I've learnt. It's not very much and it's taken me a very very long time to learn it but I believe that every bit of what I'm going to say are some of the most important things in life. Not
know it because just like
'do what you love' or
'don't speed on that twisty road' we already know all the important stuff we need to get through life BUT we mostly don't do that stuff? We know it but we haven't
learned it.
To learn something is to finally understand it, to get it, to suddenly have that CLICK as the light goes on, to feel the truth of it inside your heart and then to actually live it as part of your life. So, from now on, when I say *learn*, that's what I mean.
There are three things that finally helped me to understand this and that contributed to a lot of change in the last few years.
The dog. Which I guess seems kind of silly, but the dog taught me what it means to have someone trust you so completely with their hearts (and their lives) that you learn how powerful that is and how to respect it. That there isn't very much in the this world that can't begin to be faced if you have someone who loves you no matter what decision you make, who trusts that you will do the best that you know how and leaves you alone to do exactly that. Even if it's only an animal.
I didn't understand that until I met Matt. Matt was the first time I had a person give to me what the dog always had. I always believed that someday I would find it and I would recognize it and until then I wouldn't settle for anything less. And so, I followed what my heart wanted and I just opened it up and gave everything to him. I'm amazed every day that Matt was a part of my life. He made me finally understand that I really am an amazing person. We all are, actually, and I think we *know* it but most of us don't *learn* it. I learned what it felt like to utterly trust someone with all of who I am, in turn, like the dog had trusted me.
I think that I am blessed because the person I found was someone who knew how to respect that, who was gentle and kind and, to this day, still is. Who never used anything I gave him to hurt me, who never turned anything I was or did or said against me. I believe that it's very rare and most people give up before they find it but I think that if you listen closely to your heart and wait for it to tell you when the time is right then you'll know when you do find it, just like I did.
I've had people tell me that it's not the quality of your time with someone but the relationship *over* time, or that 5 months with Matt couldn't have possibly been real or true or that it's good we only had five months because it all turns to shit anyways. I think they're all wrong - maybe not for them - but they are wrong for me. I used to try and explain our relationship but I stopped because all that matters is what I feel in my own heart. I realized that all other people would ever see about Matt and I was colored by their own experiences and well, I'm not them. I'm me. I know who I am and what it was and so, someday, will you.
I learned that I could love someone unconditionally, that I truly didn't care what people thought, that I never once looked at him and wanted him to change in any way because at that point in both of our lives, we were perfect exactly the way we were. That it doesn't mean we won't change but only that we don't need to, for each other, for anyone.
I learned that I deserved the same thing. That no one has the right to ask me to be someone I’m not and if they do, then loyalty and friendship and everything else doesn't matter because I'm better off without them.
Matt taught me joy. A kind of fierce, leaping joy that he had in some way all the time but that I had never felt before. It's not strictly true that he taught me, but more that he helped me find it in myself. I never had that feeling before and the simple fact of recognizing it was only the beginning and now that I know it's there and what it feels like, I'll always be able to find it, because once you have it - it stays.
I want you to find that kind of joy early in your life, rather than later.
The third thing is the blog. What it gave me this last couple of years is the ability to write down what's going on and to talk to myself about it. We always talk to ourselves but somehow, in becoming something 'real' it helped me to take the things I was learning and make them a part of my life. To take them from my head and into the 'real world', if that makes sense. I found that once I wrote about something, it became a part of my day to day life. I don't know if that's because in some way it went out into the world because it was on the internet or if it could have been just a notebook. My friend Tony said that my blog helped him understand things about both of us - that the concept became something he would do in his head and that worked just as well for him.
I hope that you find something like this in your own life.
Losing Lacey and Matt are the two most terrible things I've ever experienced, but I believed before them and I believe *still* that we should do things that we know will cause us pain in the end. Because to not do those things - to not love or feel or do, to not know someone or something worth knowing - is not living at all. I have never once wished that neither had been a part of my life because, in the end, they are and have been precious gifts. I am a fundamentaly different and better person because of their presence in my life.
Someone wrote something to me that has ended up being very special to me about all that and I'd like to give it to you as well.
sometimes the best gift is the gift that finally allows us to understand what we want, and not just want, but need, and require. It eliminates the floundering, and although it does, perhaps, make everything three times as hard, if three times is a number that comes after a bazillion, eventually things do come clear and clarify.
it's hard when we accept things as they are and not as how people have convinced themselves they should be. People love as much as they are able, but there is no guarantee it will be enough, or even remotely be in the way that we need.
but it's not until we fully understand what we need, that we are able to find it, and welcome it the way it deserves to be welcomed, and you are blessed for being able to do that, this time.
i know that it feels like just about anything but okay right now, but it is a gift, underneath it all, to know how much we are capable of feeling (especially when so many of us spend so much time trying not to feel anything at all) and how honest, true-honest heart-open feelings really feel.
sometimes I think the greatest thing we people-types get is this love, this crazy arms-all-open bleeding love, and even if it can't be returned in the way we believe it should be, or needs to be, even if it comes with protective barriers and already-made decisions, for you to just push open all the doors and windows in your house and let the storm come in, Jen, that's a pretty spectacular thing.
We can't know where each decision we make will send us, life is a great big puzzle we can't figure out when we look forwards - only later on, when we look backwards does it all start to make sense. We need to make a decision and then take responsibility for it and do the best we can with it, not second guess and look back but move forward, always.
I think that to other people it has always seemed that I blundered my way through life, quitting this job and doing that thing, trying this and moving here, then there - but what I was doing was trying to be happy in a life I thought that I *should* be living. I did what I thought I should be doing and then tried so hard, within that very small framework, to find something that worked and made me happy.
And none of it did.
The strangest thing is that I don't think anyone was ever really proud of me when I was trying so hard to do what I thought I should be doing - it's only now, when I have finally learned and started really living for myself that it has become something that everyone else feels they can be proud of.
And, that, finally, I'm truly proud of doing.
Look at all that time I wasted. Because, although I'm learning NOW, what would have my life been like if I'd learned it the first time?
Telling you what I've learned doesn't help you very much, in the end, because all that you can do is go through life and learn your own things. I hope that by telling you what I think was important to me it will give you something to keep an eye out for so that when those opportunities come around for you - maybe you'll recognize them the first time and you will truly learn them, as well.
These days, I sit here and be quiet and feel that joy in my heart, all the time, getting bigger all the time, with every step I make towards doing what I've always wanted. It doesn't mean that sometimes I'm not bitter. It doesn't mean that I am happy all the time, it doesn't mean that I don't have terrible days when I'm completely convinced I'm insane or stupid or wrong, but always, underneath it all - there is that joy and the knowledge that I am doing, finally, what is right.
What the cancer taught me was that I needed to learn to trust myself more. I believe I got sick because I was doing everything wrong, not in the sense that my life was awful but that I was forcing myself to do things that made me unhappy and my body finally said,
"That's enough, I quit, we're not going to work anymore. LISTEN to me." Finally, I listened. It's taken two years for me to feel that I have honored that moment but it was that very first moment that has brought me to where I am. Listen to your body, Quinn. You know it better than any doctor ever will.
This is from a commencement address a couple of weeks ago by Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple / Pixar) and he says this part better than I can.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
You have to trust in something - destiny, life, karma, God, nature, whatever. But trust in yourself FIRST. Trust in your own feelings and your own instinct and your own gut. No matter what anyone says, your instincts are good. If you are really honest with yourself, Quinn, you will always know inside whether what you are doing is right or wrong. Right or wrong - for you. No one else matters and don't let anyone ever tell you that you're wrong when you know deep inside that you are right.
I'm very sad that you're leaving because there's so much I've missed and now we haven't had the time to get over the awkward stage. I think that the person we each see at family dinners is not even close to the people we really are.
Somehow, families bring out the worst in all of us. I remember thinking that I would never grow up to make offhand thoughtless remarks to you because I remember how hurtful it was when my family didn't take me seriously or mocked my feelings, even if I knew they just opened their mouths and stupid things came out. I realized a little while ago, that I *did* grow up to do exactly that and it's part of the reason I wish that we could have spent more time with each other. I hope that you know I take you seriously and that I trust in your decisions but maybe, I need to say it and sometimes, maybe you need to hear it. I'll try to do better with this.
For the 'external' stuff, the most important things my jobs have taught me about life are these:
- when you are wrong, admit it, it may be painful in the short term but you will learn faster and earn far more respect in the long term
- sometimes, even if it's only partly your fault, take all the blame anyways, so that you can just get on with what needs to be done
- everyone deserves just as much as you do - choices, respect, kindness - give it to them, even if they don't give it to you
- be on time
- if you forget how to do something or get stuck, stop, take a deep breath or go for a walk and then try everything you can think of using all that you have learned from every direction to solve it - before you ask for help
- if you need to take a problem to someone above you - always go with a possible solution or two already in mind - they don't want to have to fix everything for you and they don't have the time - you are the expert in your job and you are there to present them with choices so that they can use their experience to pick the one they think is best
Remember, always, that knowing the right thing to do doesn't mean you will do it all the time. The trick is in the balance. To do the right thing more often than you don't. To be kind more often than you aren't. Be gentle with yourself. Most of the things you beat yourself up over - no one else even noticed. You can trust me on this one, I'm an expert.
I think that you are brave, Quinn. I think that when you make decisions you've put a lot of thought into them and once you've made up your mind, you don't let anyone change it - that one thing, in itself, is self-esteem, trust in yourself and courage all rolled up into one. You don't feel like you have to explain youself and I envy that in you. I think that you are good and kind and smart and funny and, yes, cute. I love you, but also, I like you very much and those are two very different things.
I think that you are absolutely perfect the way that you are and I hope that I get to meet the person that you grow into, at every step of the way.
No matter where I am or what I'm doing with my own life, I will always be there for you if you need me. Even if it's at 3 am on a 'school night'. This is my promise to you and it is one that you can always rely on.
Now, get out there and kick some ass.
Update on Friday, July 1, 2005 at 06:32PM by
Jen
Actually, it morphed a teeny bit to the final version that went on the plane with her so I'm just going to update it.
