Today’s #LoveMe Challenge is to write a note to your future self…
Dear Future Nicole –
First of all, I’d like to apologize for taking for granted that you will even exist. I know I spend sometimes excessive amounts of time worrying about the future and assuming that you would be there to handle things. Well, the last month made me realize that you might not always be around. I’m sorry. I should appreciate you more often.
I haven’t always been the best about making sure that you would have a functioning body to inhabit. I still drink way too much wine and diet soda (although I’m really making an effort to mix water in too!), don’t get as much sleep as I should, don’t exercise as often as I should, and don’t treat myself to nice things as often as I should. I really am sorry about not getting the massages…once this excision site heals up, I promise to make those a reality. In short, I need to do a better job of giving you a body that works and hopefully won’t produce any more cancer.
I also realized that if I want you around, I need to do a better job of nourishing my soul too. Things like art, travel, and live music really make us happy. Adding those things back into my life really are more important than finishing up that last bit of work.
I will make sure that the skin you get will be as protected as it possibly can be. I’ve done a pretty good job the past 20 years wearing SPF and that obsessiveness might reach new levels now. I’ll spend some time trying to get that scar moisturized so it’ll be less noticeable. But I will also spend some time exercising those legs so even though there will be a scar there, you will have nice strong (although probably still chubby) legs to support you.
Hopefully, by the time you read this, if you get to read this, I’ll have done a better job at finding the balance between caring about other people versus caring about us. We need more walks in nature, we need more days of shoe shopping (even if we never actually buy the really expensive ones), we need more times of sitting on the glass at NHL arenas, and we need more time in foreign countries miming our way through daily life. We need more “me time” that actually is me-focused. I’ve had a pretty good life, ask the younger Nicole. I’ve had some really awesome experiences. But I need to build on that. I want to give you a legacy that is more robust – that doesn’t end at the fourth decade.
I want you to be able to look back at this time as fondly as I look back at the younger Nicole time. I want you to be able to live to remember this time with rose-colored glasses. I want older Nicole, whatever she looks like, to not just exist – but to live…