The Letter My 23-Year-Old Self Wrote To Her (Future) Daughter

Or to her 25-year-old self.

Deno
Deno
Jul 27, 2017 · 5 min read
By Ludovic Bertron

Below is a letter I wrote to my future-daughter on October 23, 2015, watching the fountain at Washington Square Park. Reading this as a 25-year-old, I took my lesson.

My dearest,

I spent a significant amount of time on these first few words, not knowing how I should address you. Well, you clearly don’t have a name right now — given that you don’t exist (yet). I could name you right now, but then I will probably change my mind many times by the time you are –if ever– born. That’s why, I chose “my dearest” as my introduction. Even way before you are born, I know you will be my dearest, because I have always been my mother’s dearest. That is what daughters are — if they are lucky enough.

Your grandfather, my father, always told me that my college years would be the best years of my life. I never believed him until the day I had to move my things out of my college dorm. That day I knew things would never be the same, because I had to take care of myself now; but that still didn’t mean there weren’t more “best years” ahead of me. Trying to grow some roots in America while maintaining the ones at home in Turkey, I left the safety network of my predominantly upper-middle class, white and liberal college. I moved to the city that I wanted to live in the most: New York.

My dear, just be open to the fact that things change, all the time.

It is safe to assume that people let us down — (again) all the time, but remember that you are a human being, too, just like many others around you. You are bound to fail, make some decisions, stick to them and see that they were not as good of decisions as you thought they were in the first place.

Be in touch with yourself and accept yourself the way you are: with your perfections and with your flaws. Why am I telling you all this? As your mother-to-be, I have realized that you just cannot understand others if you cannot understand yourself. Every single day, I realize the ways in which I fail or succeed, which helps me sympathize with others. Thanks to that, I get to forgive and forget. The more you let things accumulate in and around your heart, the heavier your heart will feel; and trust me, you will just want your heart to fly, not to drag and bring you down.

Things will get rough some days. You will have no idea what you want to do or be in life. You will choose to try different things to figure out what you want. Sometimes you will meet professionals who will put you under the spotlight and leave it on for too long that you will start to sweat, only to realize that the spotlight was not put there for your advantage. People will see that you have such potential, and sometimes instead of fostering that potential, they will try to hamper with it. They will ask you to change, be somebody that you are not, compromise and yield.

One day, your grandfather sent me an e-mail that ended with: “Don’t yield”. I say: “Don’t you ever yield”. Whatever you do is your doing, is your success, your failure. Always do your best, stand by it and let the rest handle itself. Passion is what keeps us going, but is also what attracts jealous souls. You stay right on track and never back down. There will occasionally be some people (men and women) not recognizing you, just because you are a woman. Do not even bother; look at how far we have come, you and I. You keep doing you without feeling the need to prove yourself to others. Be yourself, be proud of yourself and be even prouder that you are a woman.

There will always be days of injustice; sometimes you will benefit from them through your privilege, and sometimes you will find yourself on the other side of the fence, frustrated. One day, maybe, while waiting in line, someone will grab you by the hand and take you to the top of the line. You will not understand why they did it; it could be because that you are pretty or maybe you are wearing a red sweater and red is that person’s favorite color. Maybe you will find a job and see that it was easier for you to get an interview because you (or I for that matter) knew someone working there. If you are compassionate enough — and I hope you will be, you will acknowledge your privilege and recognize the inequalities around you. I am not saying be grateful; I am saying be grateful, and also do something about it. Do not take anything for granted, do not be a part of the injustice. Know that your voice matters, but have the courage to accept that you will sometimes have to step aside and say other people’s voices matter more.

Injustice works in many ways. Some days it will work for your benefit, but sometimes you will be left behind. Don’t be that person who only gets mad at the system when she can’t benefit from it. Some days, people will hold your traits against you — things that make you who you are. They will maybe blame you for having a Turkish mother, or say that your mother was too Americanized for you to be Turkish. Somehow, they will do their best to make you feel like you don’t belong. You will lose major opportunities, maybe fall significantly behind, simply because some people high up in the hierarchy won’t believe you have what it takes. This “what it takes” won’t be more than a discriminatory ideal and will change from one country to another, but it will always exist in one form. Don’t let this take anything away from you. Create your own ideal and be that ideal.

I don’t know where you will be by the time you get to read this letter, but my dear, don’t forget that home is wherever you want it to be. If you set your heart on it, you can make any place home. Carry your loved ones with you, and make them a piece of wherever you go. Love will cozy up the room, and before you know it, you will be settled to live your own future. You will fall in love and out of love. You will get your heart broken so many times that you will even forget the count, but when you look back at it all, please be able to say that you did it all for love and that it all felt right.

You will fall, my dear, but you will always stand right back up. You are a fighter, but remember: life is not a fight.

Love,

Your (Future) Mother

Deno

Written by

Deno

An up-and-coming New Yorker, who is sometimes neither up nor coming.

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