"I look back at myself at ten, 14, 20... and remember who I thought I was and who I thought I would become. The truth is that I was sometimes something like I thought. But mostly, not. I was mostly a lot better than I imagined I was. I was nobler, smarter, more gifted, more powerful, more loved that I ever grasped at the time.
"I don't think we can understand ourselves at the moment when we are living ourselves. We only understand who we are and our significance in the world when, like an insect shedding a too-tight skin, we revisit our exuviae and see the shape of what we were."And so I fear we can almost never be happy unless we absolutely, completely forgive ourselves for the mistakes that we make, every day, the flaws we perceive, real or imagined, the tiny and enormous fears that captivate us and conceal from us our truths.
"So let us be kind to ourselves. Let us love ourselves now, not waiting to love the brittle, dry cast off shells of our old selves. Let us love us now, warm and living and furiously growing, changing right before our very eyes and sometimes completely out of sight." (Being and understanding, Lisa Allen-Agostini)If I've never shared this with you before, I hope you enjoyed reading it. If you've already read it, do forgive me. I'm 40 and my memory isn't what it used to be.
But at 40 I may in fact be twice as smart as I used to be, thanks to the phenomenon of Google, that ubiquitous know-it-all search engine that can legitimately be called half my brain.
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