What I Would Tell My Younger Self...

This month we at SheHopesHQ have been focusing on what we would tell our younger selves. Today we are hearing from Ginger Lobdell, founder of SheHopes.

…

Dear Ginger (September 1997),

I remember staring up at the ceiling late into the night and wishing that my Older Self could somehow tell me that everything is going to be okay.

You are a planner.

You hate surprises.

You read the last page first of every book you start.

You want to know what the future holds for you.

But mostly you want to know that everything with be okay.

Your wish came true. Through the magic of memories, I can travel back in time and be right there with you through everything.

You are so hard on yourself. Your inner voice is the harshest critic you will ever have. You will spend far too long putting yourself down, second-guessing your decisions, and beating yourself up when you don’t feel that you are good enough. I wish with all of my heart that I could teach you to value yourself sooner than you do. With every passing year around the sun, and a lot of studying the inner workings of why you are the way you are, you will little-by-little learn to appreciate the woman you are working hard to become. Everything will be okay.

You tend to hold people at a distance, and very few are let in to see all of you. There will be times when you give your heart to people, and they will come close to crushing the life out of you. Everything will be okay.

There will be other times when you allow yourself to open up to others, and they will love, support, and help you rebuild every part of your broken heart. They will make your dreams come true while helping you learn to love, trust, and heal again and again. Everything will be okay.

You are going to meet the three most amazing boys, and you will be privileged to have them call you Mom. It will be impossible to express how lucky you feel to play a small role in each of their lives. One minute you will be in the hospital holding them while gazing into their dark eyes for the first time, and the next you will have to reach up to hug them goodnight. You will worry about them, research how to handle the teen years, try to protect them, and ultimately you will see that your little boys will grow to be incredible young men. Their independence, authenticity, and care for the people and world around them will continue to fill your heart with awe. Everything will be okay.

After years of hearing that it’s impossible, you will see two more sets of lines that tell you that there is more life inside of you. Your heart will break when the hopes and dreams for those little lives are gone, and twice more your heart will begin to heal even though it will never be the same. Broken hearts are never the same. Even then, everything will be okay.

You will once again throw yourself into the work that you won’t set out to find, but it will find you. Through listening to the stories of women and girls around the world - their hopes, fears, triumphs, and issues facing them - you will see that there is more that connects us than is different. Their experiences will be close to your heart, and you will find that through helping them - you will one day be magically helping your younger self as well. You will give them permission to protect themselves at the same time you are helping your younger self who didn’t know how to fight back. While you are empowering them through job training, you will be learning skills beyond what you ever thought possible. When you are opening up the world for a girl through education, you will be giving your younger self something she has always wanted - to know that you have no limits. Everything will be okay.

There will be tears, deployments, health scares, teenage drivers, and pandemics…but there will also be laughter, adventure, joy, memories, music, friendships, rainbows, sunsets, a hand to hold, and so much HOPE.

There will come a day when you stop reading the last page of a book first.

Everything will be okay…I promise.

~ Ginger (September 2020)