Dear Travis,

So I have been hearing recently about this exercise where you actually sit down and write a letter to your younger self and you give him or her advice about the life that you are going to face.  I initially thought this was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard because my younger self had already lived my life so who was I really giving advice to and why would my younger self even want to take advice from me when my life was nothing but one big hot mess?  Then I thought about it a little more and figured out that everyone, including me and my former self, could benefit from my advice so why not....

Dear Travis,

I am writing this to you on the cusp of my 41st birthday.  I have no idea how old you are right now in the time/space continuum in which you live but I hope that, at whatever age you are when you read this, it gives you some insight into what your life will be like.

First, you have AMAZING parents.  Wherever you are right now you probably don't believe me.  You think your mother is to loud and that your father always agrees with her but they love you like no one else does and they are the most supportive people in the world.  Eventually you will see them age and realize how lucky you are that you have had them in your life for as long as you have.  Their only fault is that they will do TOO good of a job raising you and when you do go out on your own you will realize that clothes don't wash themselves, condiments don't grow in the pantry, and even though it falls freely from the sky, your water will be turned off if you refuse to pay the bill.

Thanks to your late summer birthday you will be younger then everyone in all your classes and your maturity level wont really even out with your classmates until high school.  This will be a struggle for you well into college when you will realize that your academic ability far exceeds your social skills.  You wont really come into your own til your mid twenties when your body and mind finally catch up with one another.

The filter between your mind and mouth will fail you on numerous occasions and you your words will hurt those closest to you.  While you wont realize it when it happens this will teach you, as an adult, the power of an honest apology.  You will learn that the pain from words last s far longer then the sting of slap.

You will eventually appreciate your younger brother.  Yes, he is annoying now, and yes you think everyone likes him more then you do, but he ends up being a great guy that marries the perfect girl and has a handsome son.  You'll talk every week and look forward to holiday visits after he moves away from Mobile.

You'll meet great friends who enjoy weekly dinners.  You'll take amazing trips far out of Alabama and you'll get to do things that right now you've only read about.  You aren't moving to New York, even though right now you know it is totally in your future and you can go ahead and take the Oscar acceptance speech that you have folded i your wallet out and store it someplace safe.  I'm not saying you'll never use it, but the place you have reserved for the statue in your curio is still empty.

You have accepted that you will be single for the rest of your life and that you wont have any children, but the month after you turn 26 that will all change and the older you get the more Easter eggs you will dye, the more uniforms you will buy and the more stockings you will see on your mantle at Christmas.

You will go through hard times.  You'll face down enemies and endure the betrayal of false friends.  You will think that this kind of thing is only happening to you but you will grow to realize that it happens to everyone.

Eventually you will read about this exercise and you'll think it is crazy.  You'll look at your own life with a pen and paper in front of you trying to detail all of the things that you would change if you could go back and do it over again and you'll be surprised when, after serious contemplation, that paper is blank.

You wouldn't go back and relive it, but you also wouldn't change it.  All of the good, bad and ugly is what led you to this place in your life, which apparently is right where you want to be.

So, wherever you are, enjoy these next years.  Trust me, it's one hell of a ride.

Love,

You