When I grow up ...

I don't know how many times I've written about this since it happened. 

But +1 to the total, I suppose!! 

When I was a freshman in High School, I had a fabulous Honors English Teacher. Mrs. N was not only my teacher but also my softball and basketball coach. (I used to be an athlete, neat, huh?)

Anyway, Mrs. N had this great IDEA...a TRADITION she planned on starting with the kids in our honors class. She was going to force give us a chance to preserve our teenage selves. 

All of our hopes, dreams, favorite bands, favorite moments; our ideas and thoughts and most importantly,

how we viewed the world and ourselves. 

It became an ongoing Independent Study Project. 

We had a list of a hundred or so topics and things to write about 

Make a list of your 10 favorite movies

Write a letter to your graduating self from your present-day self

Make a list of 10 things that make you smile

Write an Essay about what you would change about yourself and why.

.That one hit me. 

Write an Essay about what you would change about yourself and why.

That's a task, isn't it? 

I wrote the essay and turned it in and as was the fashion, Mrs. N read all our submissions, gave us a grade out of 10, wrote comments (at least on mine she did) and sealed them. 

The agreement was, you would receive your time capsule on Graduation Day to open before the ceremony. I wound up moving my Junior Year and thus was given the Time Capsule to take with me. 

On graduation day (June 2nd 2001) I opened up my capsule and dove in to its contents. 

It really wasn't all that eye-opening. 

In fact, I remembered 95% of everything - word for word - that I had written. 

(I have a wicked awesome memory, you see) 

But the best part was reading Mrs. N's comments. 

I remembered during the course of that year, Mrs. N had singled out "someone" who was going above and beyond with the project.

She described how that person not only completed the mandatory 16 items from the list, but also completed several more - with incredible enthusiasm. 

In front of our whole class, she would read a few of the things that people had written. 

Nothing so much as to give away who the author was. 

But I always knew when they were mine.

And often, they were. 

She singled me out (anonymously) by telling the class that not only had one person written a list of things that made them smile, but had gone from 10 to 100 things and given the explanation as to why they made the list. Impressive, she had said. 

I, of course, blushed fiercely from the middle of the room. 

However, I digress. 

The essay. 

Do you know what I wrote about? 

(Of course you don't)

I wrote that if I could change just one thing about myself it would be the fact that I wanted to change anything at all. You see, I wanted to strive not to change who I was in to something else, but rather to accept who I was and not only be happy with that but also appreciate how awesome a thing it was to be me. 

Mrs. N wrote some pretty nice comments in her lovely purple penmanship. 

Here it is, approaching ten years from my graduation from high school (!) and I still feel the same way. The only thing I would want to change is that I want to change things. 

I don't really want smaller thighs, I want to love the thighs I have and accept them for all their glory. 

I don't want thicker hair, I want to cherish the hair I do have (while I have it ...)

I don't want a smaller bust (oh, wait. Yeah, that one I do want....back to the drawing board...)

But you get the idea. 

We ask this of our kids, ourselves, our friends ... what would you change about yourself? 

How about this year, we try accepting ourselves for who we are? Continue to grow, continue to become the people we are meant to be and when we realize who that person is, love them for it. In spite of it. Because they.are.perfect.

Elsie P

PS - what have you learned to accept about yourself?