30 before 30 :: the letter

Dear 20-Year-Old Kelsey:

Let’s just get this part out of the way: here’s what’s not going to happen in the next ten years.

You’re not going to get married. You’ll believe, deep in your bones, that you’ll marry your college boyfriend. You won’t. That breakup will be painful but will be the first time in this decade that you truly listen to what you want and do something about it. You’ll believe, even deeper in your bones, that you’ll marry a man who made you believe in love at first sight. You won’t. You’ll be buried by the heartache for a while, but will eventually see — and believe in — a world beyond it. 

You’ll be glad you did not rush to fit into a timeline you thought you should follow. You’ll be grateful you did not sacrifice parts of who you are for someone else. These will be the first moments of listening and trusting your gut. There will be more.

You’re not going to have a relationship with your dad. On every birthday, you’ll hold out hope that you’ll hear from him. You won’t. You’ll talk twice in these ten years: before your college graduation, where he’ll promise to take you out for a drink since he won’t attend, and at your grandfather’s funeral, where he’ll finally buy you that drink. His absence will shape you — you’ll talk about it to your mom, your inner circle, your therapist. But it will not define you.

You’ll get to a place where you feel the grief less, where you can release the anger, where you can move toward acceptance of what is. You won’t let go, but you’ll hold it lightly. Be patient; it’s coming.

You’re not going to have it all figured out. You really won’t have anything figured out at any point, really, even when you’re certain you do. You believe that there is a linear path right now — this guides you in almost everything you do. If you do this, then this, then this, then you’ll be there. But then you’ll change your major a few more times, you’ll have your world flipped by travel abroad, you’ll change careers. Uncertainty will always scare you, but it will be less and less as you move through each year. You’ll learn that there’s not really a “figured out” destination that you (or anyone else) arrives at.

None of that will happen for you this decade. But here’s what will.

You will see beautiful places. Rwanda and India and England, the skyline of Chicago and the mountains in Colorado and the beautiful coast in Cannon Beach. You’ll reckon with the privilege you have to get an education abroad and travel for fun and have paid time off. You’ll reflect on what it means to feel at home, what it means to call a place home. You will find your people in all of these places, and find new parts of yourself, too. 

You will date. Or, at least, you’ll go on dates. A man you’ve met once will surprise you at the airport with a cup of coffee and flowers. You’ll donate to a canvasser who stops by your door, and let him take you out for drinks. You’ll meet a man on a dance floor at your favorite bar and stay in touch for seven years. You’ll learn about yourself and more about what you want from every date, every kiss, every human.

You will have life-changing friendships. Life-saving ones. Your dearest friends at 20 will still be yours at 29, and what a miracle that will be — to have a decade of history together. You’ll build new connections along the way, write letters and FaceTime and spend hours over coffee and Thai and wine. They’ll listen to you jabber on about the same old things you’re unwilling to change and love you anyway. They’ll be the safe places you can cry and practice vulnerability. They’ll nudge you, each time, toward the truest version of yourself.

You will grapple with depression and disordered eating, and you won’t tell anyone, though you wonder if you should. You’ll discover the ways you self-sabotage when people try to care for you, and understand how your quirks and deeper-rooted issues show up in your days. You will agonize over what you should do in the world, over who you should be. You will wonder if you should look a different way, if you should have chosen a different path, if you should, should, should. The shoulds will consume you for a long time.

But you’ll get to a place where you can say — and mostly believe — that the ‘shoulds’ you have in your mind are not helpful to you. Or to anyone else. You’ll try, every day, to keep them quiet. It will, every day, be a work in progress.

You’ll sing in so many karaoke bars, you’ll start and stop and start therapy, you’ll think you want to become a pastor. You’ll get emergency surgery in another country, you’ll read poems that make you cry, you’ll get a master’s degree. You’ll call your mom, you’ll kill some plants, you’ll start this blog.

You’ll guard your heart when you should open it, and give your heart to people who don’t deserve it. You’ll sit with people in their deepest pain, and find moments to celebrate with them, too. You’ll change your mind about so many things — tattoos, sex, meat, religion. Socks, capital letters, coffee, technology. You’ll make mistakes. You’ll do many things right.

So much won’t happen this decade that you thought would. And — even better — so much will happen that you can’t even imagine, things you don’t even know to wish for that will come true. You’ll learn that you can try to plan and control all you want, but that there’s really no use. You’ll repeat this to yourself and, slowly, slowly, learn to hold things lightly, to loosen your grip — if only just a bit. 

And, at 29, you’re going to sit down to write a letter to yourself. You’ll pick up your old journals from that year, giggle at your absolute conviction in one entry and your utter confusion in the one the next day. That is your life — both/and, all the time. You’ll look back at this decade and think, “Yes. This was it. This was mine.”

This decade is yours, dear one. Eyes open, heart wide, bold and gentle. Pay attention to it all.

I promise you, you won’t want to miss a thing. 

All the love,
Kelsey

you'd already be dressed.

This story is about going on a date, but it’s not actually about that. It’s about much more than that — listening to your gut, burrowing deep into your knowing, and being sure enough of it to trust it.

It was the fall of 2018. I’d recently moved to the Fargo-Moorhead area, I’d started a new job, and I’d re-downloaded Tinder for the who-knows-how-many-ith time.

This “download, swipe, delete” is a common storyline for women in their 20s. It’s a throughline that connects every single millennial woman and the reality that showcases the complicated ways we try to find connection in this world. Download, swipe, delete. Pause. Download, swipe, go on a date, delete. Repeat.

We hear this story from another woman. We nod. We understand. It’s rough out there, especially on the screens. There are men with large fish and men with large egos, men with only shirtless selfies and men surrounded by other men so you don’t actually know which man is the one named Derek or Zach or Joe. So when you find someone you’re excited to talk to and get to know, it feels rare. Because it is.

One weekend while visiting Megan in the Twin Cities, I was in a “download” phase. I had Tinder on my phone and swiped a bit. I matched with someone and felt that excited buzz. I did not live in the Twin Cities at the time, but I was upfront about that. We texted quite a bit on the app. Then we moved to actual texting. Then we added Snapchat to the mix and the fact that we can communicate with humans in our lives on countless apps is one of the most exhausting parts of being human in this era.

Jack (we’ll call him Jack) was funny and witty and kind. He had a socially-conscious job. He had hobbies that were intriguing — hiking and board games and listening to NPR. He seemed to exhibit emotional intelligence and there was not a single fish in his profile photos. I thought, “Huh!”

So, the next time I was in the Twin Cities, I decided to meet Jack. We’d go out for dinner and drinks that evening, around 6:00pm. It was a plan. It was a date!

Except, all of a sudden it was 4:30pm, and I was still sitting on Megan’s couch. I hadn’t showered, though I desperately needed one. The five outfit options I’d brought with me were still tucked away in my suitcase. My nails, which I’d vowed to paint before this date, were still chipped.

I told Megan that I wanted to go, but I was still sitting here because I was just nervous! And because it’d been a while since I’d dated! And because the last person I’d talked to on this dating app had sent me not 7, not 8, but 13 messages in a row once before I finally responded. I told Megan that I’d get up and start getting ready so soon. I’d get up in just a few. It was only 5:15pm at this point; I still had a solid 30 minutes!

Her reply? 

“If you wanted to go, you’d already be dressed.”

As soon as Megan said these words to me, I nodded and thought, “Huh.” Because how many times in my life have I been so excited for something, so ready to go, that I could hardly wait another instant? The night before school when it’s impossible to go to bed. The moments before publishing something on my blog. Even other dates, where I showed up 15 minutes too early and awkwardly waited in my car for 21 minutes so I could walk in a casual and acceptable five minutes late.

But there I was, unprepared and unshowered and, apparently, unenthused about this date. My body and my gut were telling me that I didn’t want to go; I had to let my mind catch up before I accepted it.

Now, I’m sure if I had gone on that date, it would have been fine. I did feel like a bit of an asshole for cancelling so soon before. I apologized profusely and explained what was my truth: I thought I was ready and feeling it, but I was wrong. My body was telling me so. I couldn’t show up and fake it.

And that’s become the threshold — reminder — for trusting my gut. Would I already be dressed? Because in this decade, I’ve learned that my gut is almost always right — especially with romance. 

It’ll tell me when I should keep moving forward even when it doesn’t make sense, like dating someone who was moving across the country two days later. “Do it,” my gut said. It’ll be worth it!” And it was.

It’ll tell me when I should step back or stop, like when I went on a blind date with someone who spent 45 minutes telling me about how the Illuminati was controlling the Earth (and that the Earth was actually a snow globe!). “Evacuate!” my gut said. “You do not have to stay and listen to this!” So I left.

I’m amazed at how often I try to convince myself the opposite of what my body and my gut tell me. It’s not always that simple and laid out there for us, but sometimes — it just is. Sometimes all we have to do is get quiet, listen, and ask our own version of the question:

Would I already be dressed?