I started this post several months ago but never got around to finishing it until now.

Sophisticated Writer had a post entitled A Letter to 1995 Me.  The idea of writing about the wisdom gained from life experience appealed to me.  If I could go back and give my 1995 self some advice, what would it be?  Hindsight is 20/20, and I’ve learned some lessons since 1995.  Here’s what I would tell the 1995 Carol:

Stop obsessing about your weight.  It’s not worth your mental and physical energy.  Accept yourself as you are and set your mind on the important things in life.  Do what you want to.  If you lose weight because you stop obsessing about it, great.  If not, you’re no worse off than before.  And whatever you do, do NOT start taking those stupid diet pills.  They will just mess up your metabolism and wreak havoc on your body.  Sure, you will get a few years of being thinner out of them, but the price will be too much in terms of your long-term health.

Go see a good counselor about the marriage issues.  Now.  Don’t worry about the expense and don’t worry if you have to go by yourself.   It’s not healthy to not talk about things that bother you.  Who knows - maybe if you go to counseling, the marriage might last and you won’t have to go through a divorce.  But even if it doesn’t save the marriage, at least you’ll be saner during the process.

Take dancing lessons.  It’s something you’ve always wanted to do.  So what if you have to go alone.  It’s better to enjoy life by yourself than to have a partner in misery.

Go ahead and finish your dissertation. Now.  Make it a priority rather than spending your energy on something that can’t be fixed right now.  If you put it off too long, it’ll be too late, and all your coursework and qualifying exams will have been for nothing.  You go past the deadline - and the only way to get the doctorate is to start all over again.

Most of all - do NOT marry anyone unless you are in love with him.  He can’t “love you enough for both of you.”  If he drives you nuts before marriage, he will drive you even more nuts afterwards.  (This refers to my very brief second marriage in which I married simply because I knew the guy would always love me and that there wouldn’t be all the drama I experienced in my other two significant relationships - and also because I figured marrying “for love” hadn’t worked out in my first marriage, and the love thing hadn’t worked out with the guy I had dated seriously while I was divorced.  So why not go for someone who would always love me and someone who wouldn’t be a drama-king in the relationship?  I found that a marriage not based on mutual love doesn’t work.)

There really are only a few things I regret in my life - my second marriage,  not finishing my doctorate, and the fact that I still obsess over my weight.  I guess that’s not too bad for 58 years of living.

I think it would be helpful to write to my 2017 self.  What would I want to tell myself in ten years?  That’s an endeavor for another day.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 30th, 2007 at 12:32 pm and is filed under Life Lessons, Random Stuff, Remembering, That's My Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.