Dear Younger Self, 

I’m writing to you from the future. The future that is nothing like you thought it would be. The future in which you thought you would be married, have kids, live in a big house and have a job of a lifetime by now. None of that happened, and it’s a future that is not really fair, but you seek the joy in it. You are not married or have kids, but you have Bertie, a Golden Retriever, who you love as much as a kid. You have your nephew and niece Hendrix and Hannah who bring so much joy to your life. 

You don’t have a big house, but you have your little bungalow that you are so proud of. You have made it your own and you enjoy decorating and spending time being the “neighborhood watch.” I wished that we had done some things differently when we were younger, but I really wouldn’t change a thing. If we could have changed anything, it would have been not to take things as seriously as we did in high school and college. We wouldn’t have taken hard classes in high school or worried about studying, we would have joined more clubs and sports teams. We would have tried things that we would have never done– like taking FFA classes or trying out for the baseball team. We’d have spent more time with our friends, making memories and spending less time worrying about the future. We wouldn’t have worried about what other people thought of us or said about us because in the end their opinions didn’t matter one bit, nor did they change the way our life turned out. 

One thing we wouldn’t have changed is going to Tennessee Tech. Gosh, that place gave us some of the greatest memories. It also gave us some of our greatest struggles, but those struggles have made us a better person in the end. Tennessee Tech gave us three of our best friends (Abby, Chelsea and Cassidy). We’ve all been through so much through the 10 years you’ve known each other. You share some of the best memories and adventures with each other and hopefully more to come in the future. Y’all have helped each other through life, tests, struggles and achievements. The nights in the 419 house and Marble Slab dates are memories you’ll never forget. The late nights at Spankies or cosmos with nursing friends, thinking y’all are so cool because you’re living the college life. We cherish those moments because we were making some of our greatest memories. 

There are a few things that I would tell you to change if I could, especially where you held back, not taking risks or having experiences because you just didn’t know if you would fit in. Go through rush! Some of your greatest friends were in the frats and sororities and you would have fit in perfectly. Play every intramural sport you can even, if you suck at it. Don’t be afraid to travel abroad. Your trip to Belize with nursing school is going to be one of the highlights of your life. I wish we would have traveled more in college and after because now it’s hard with our health, but one day it will happen for us. When college ends, you’ll move back home for a little bit, then out to Murfreesboro, but you’ll hate it. I think you only stayed there for a couple of months before making excuses to come back home. You’ll make your big move to Nashville with Joanna! You’ll create a friendship that will last a lifetime, and it’s one that you don’t have to communicate every day, but you still know that all you have to do is pick up the phone and she’ll be there. 

Nashville will make you realize that you are not made for the city life. Your life is meant for a slower pace. Not because you can’t handle it, but because you enjoy the small-town vibes and the community you have in a small town. You enjoy the neighbors you have and going for a walk down College Street with Bertie. Saturday morning coffee and Jeep rides on the backroads. The smell of the crisp winds that cut through the air on a boat ride with your parents and the bonfire smell that still remains from the night before. Those are the memories that bring joy to your life. Your life is going to get really hard and you’re going to experience things that you never thought you would have to experience, but you’ll make it. It’s going to take time and you’ll feel like giving up– but don’t. Also, you’re going to learn life lessons that you shouldn’t have to learn in your 20s but you’ll be thankful that you did. It’s going to make you realize how fragile life is and how quickly time can be taken from you. You learn to cherish the little moments and random conversations with friends and family. 

You’re going to look forward to your weekday  5 pm calls with Katie to talk about the most random stuff, Friday night dinners at Nachos, Carly’s cookies at Sunday trivia, and Colin always sending a Snapchat of a lottery ticket saying he’s going to take care of us because it’s the winning ticket. HE NEVER WINS! Your friends and family will mean so much to you and they’ll never know how much you love them. Even though you’re tough on them and sometimes mean to them, it’s strictly out of love. You will become emotional and it’s ok. You’ll hate that you show your emotions more than ever, but everyone understands why. You won’t work for a while starting in December of 2022. You’ll think it will be just a couple of weeks, but it will turn into months and then a year and so on. Your work family will be such a blessing and become some of the greatest blessings in your life. You don’t have the job you thought you would, but your job is so worth it and you love it. You will miss going to work and asking people about what type of bowel prep they took for their colonoscopy. How weird is that?? You’ll miss talking about poop! Haha!

 We realize that money and a couple of extra degrees will not bring happiness to us. You’ve learned a lot being a nurse and have filled many positions as a nurse. You’ve held hands with people in their last breaths, you’ve encouraged patients to keep going in their fight, you’ve been honest with people about their life decisions, and you’ve shown love and compassion to those in need. Nursing also has made you have tough skin. You’ve watched people die who shouldn’t have died, and you’ve lied to people to show them comfort in their last moments. And you got smart- when you reached the point where you looked at patients not as people but as organisms that you had to keep alive, you knew that you had to change your job and find enjoyment with patients. The choices you made in your career have been such a blessing and have led you to where you needed to be. The struggles you’ve witnessed as both nurse and patient have made you more humble and have sympathy for people that you couldn’t show previously. 

Yes, I said as a patient. We become a patient, and we will end as a patient. You just had to outdo everyone in the world and get a rare 1 in a billion type of cancer. The motto was to try to be boring, but you failed at doing that. Through our cancer diagnosis, we discovered a new talent. Writing. We used to despise writing. It was because we were afraid to express how we really felt. We were scared of judgment and opinions of people, people whose opinions didn’t matter. When we learned that we might not live long, we started just not to care what people thought. We wanted people to know how we felt and if they didn’t like or thought it was too honest, so what? We wanted people to really see how we felt about dying, the grief we felt, and the emotions we carry every day. We wanted people to feel as uncomfortable as we did. We weren’t going to cater to everyone else’s feelings anymore because it was all about what we felt. So we made a blog and put it all out there. We didn’t realize that people actually needed that because they felt the same way. We have connected with so many people over our writing and I think we have truly helped people with life lessons that they couldn’t quite figure out. 

I write this letter to you wishing I could send it back in time so that you could have a little heads up about the future. I know that God had our life planned out before we were even thought of and he knows the rest of the story as well. I write this not only for younger Taylor but also for anyone who thinks their life has to be planned out or has their life planned out for them. Life is a big question mark and that’s what it is supposed to be. My advice is don’t take life too seriously because you’ll regret it. Have fun, be spontaneous, travel the world, learn new things, trust in God, don’t be greedy and love everyone even if they don’t love you. In my opinion, if you do these things I think you’ll have a life that will be so meaningful! Just live because tomorrow is not promised. 

Love, 

Taylor