To my 21 year old self, who wondered if she would ever get married, wondered if she would ever graduate college, wondered if she would ever have her own children.  To my 21 year old self who was newly sick, newly in debt, the new kid on the block, new to service.  I was new to adult relationships, new to prayer, new to the working world.   I was new to exercise. 




To 21 year old Anna, I would say:




It won't take quite the whole decade, but almost. 




It will get tremendously worse, before it gets better.




It will take more than a few years ahead of you, to get it right.  Or at least to get a few things right.


You will be poor.  You will be hurt.  You will work harder than anyone.  You will fight harder than anyone.  You will be lonely.  You will be scared.  You will be angry.  You will be really angry.  You will be betrayed, you will be left.  You will excel.  You will learn.  So much.   You will make bad decisions.  You will learn not to judge others.  You will be in danger.  You will be the protector.  You will be held and kept and loved.




You will come to the end of every year for the first eighty percent of this decade and breathe deep, wondering how this year didn't manage to kill you.  How did you survive?  Somehow you will. 


You'll come up, worse for wear or swinging.  Until that 8th year.




You'll forget to even tell anyone about that eighth year, but that's how long it will take. 




How long it will take to find some peace.  To find some healing.  To find the ease you've been looking for.




Right now, at 21, you are always telling others you don't mind to wait.  It's the fear that there's nothing to actually wait for, that's the hardest.  And I wish I could tell you, it was just right there.  Nothing would be in vain.




The family and the life and the love and the dreams. 


In ten years, you will travel the world.  Not nearly as much as you'd hoped, but it will happen.  You will recover from medical debt, return to school.  You will learn heartbreaking truths and experience painful rejection and repeated abuse.  You will take a positive pregnancy test and no one will keep that secret for you.  You will navigate the waters of motherhood alone, working, learning, building.  Judah will come.  Even though you never thought you'd get to be a mommy, there he is.  Your brown eyed boy.  If I could talk to my 21 year old self now, I would say: just wait.  He's coming. 


You will figure out how to take care of both of you, and you will find new jobs and buy a new home.  You will allow people in, give them time and space, who do not deserve it.  And if I could tell you now, to let go so much sooner, I would.  If I could tell you to ignore a phone call, ignore a text, to believe someone when they told you who they were, I would shout that from the rooftops. 


Because the people you will encounter over the next decade are not safe people.  Very few are good. 


There's no way to tell the future, though.  Halfway through the decade you will meet someone who will change your life and maybe you'd believe me, if I told you.  But probably not.  Knowing would probably change everything and trust me when I say, you don't want it to change.


Right now, here at the end of 2019, Judah is laying on the floor with him and your second son.  Judah's baby brother.  His son, too.  They are napping and there are candles burning and a movie playing. You will love this life.


If there was another way to get you here, I don't know it. 


But you will get here.  That seventh year, your phone will break and you will lose all your numbers and all your pictures.  And that eighth year, he will wish you happy birthday. 


And what was started halfway through the decade, will start to weave itself together again.


And that last year, that last year of the decade you will bring this baby boy into the world.  And he will give you a ring.  There will not just be one little boy, but three.  And two little girls too.  There will be a wedding.


21 year old Anna won't believe me.  How could she?  How could you look at someone and say, all of your dreams will come true at the end of this decade, and expect her to believe you?  At 21, maybe she might feel lucky.  But my god.  It has nothing to do with luck.


You will learn how to use your breath, how to move better; you will learn how to help others.  You will learn how to cook, how to build muscles, how to keep a household, how to manage finances, how to build credit. 


The only thing I would tell 21 year old Anna without a moment's hesitation is, don't take out those student loans.


I don't know how that would change the trajectory of our story, really.  But I'd be willing to risk it.