An Open Letter To Me @ 23

You cried during your annual performance review. They told you there wouldn’t be any surprises. There were.

They told you that you laughed too much alone at your desk with your headphones on. They told you to make more friends.

They told you your work was excellent, but you are hard to read.

They told you that you were promoted. You started crying well before they got to that part.

“Sorry for the shit sandwich,” they shrugged.

It’s nearly impossible to get an A in Corporate America, at least for someone like you, someone who’s used to getting As.

But you don’t understand why yet.

You’re going to keep trying.

You’re going to try all kinds of different work environments—everything on the list you wrote at your desk, the one where you laugh with your headphones on.

You’re going to make more friends, and a few nemeses, too.

You’re going to travel.

You’re going to see the country in new ways, ride on the company jet, and earn status.

You’re going to stay up too late to watch Snoop perform in a cloud of smoke at The Showbox SoDo.

You’re going to date and you’re going to find dating immediately boring. You’re going to wonder if maybe it’s the suitors or maybe it’s you. You’re going to drink too much and hang out until last call and eat Egg McMuffins hungover in your platonic life partner’s parents’ Range Rover. He was your first friend at work, the one where they told you to make more friends. They didn’t know how many friends you had.

“But aren’t I walking the path the world told me I should?” you’ll ask yourself in the front seat of that Range.

And it’ll get harder before it gets easier.

You’ll watch your dad die, see your family crumble, and notice a lot of relationships suddenly make less sense.

Your therapist will help some. Reading will help a lot. Yoga, too.

And as painful as watching the one person who was always consistently there leave you will be, it will put everything else in perspective.

Your dark nights will brighten into softly-lit mornings, the tired sun shining its pastel light into the window just so. You’ll linger over the little rainbows it casts on the floor. You’ll remember that magic exists in moments.

A man will get kicked out of a bar and into your life. You’ll marry him.

Your dad will show up as a rainbow shooting out of your heart at the wedding.

Right before you turn thirty, you’ll get laid off. You’ll struggle to get pregnant. But you will.

And by the time you meet your first baby, you’ll be ready to burn it all down: the path you were walking, the shoulds, the realization of someone else’s plan.

From the ashes, you will build a business—and a life—you love. You’ll work with the most incredible clients.

You’ll show your babies what loving your work and picking them up from school without unnecessary stress can look like.

When you’re in your creative flow, writing stories about businesses doing good in the world, you’ll laugh at your desk with your headphones on.

And no one will say a damn thing about it.