Letter to 18-Year-Old Lisa

Here’s a preview, buckle up —

Pain and ecstasy, birth and death, the relentless forward march of time that will both fill and empty you of everything, over and over again.

There will be weddings and divorce, passion and fury. Friends will come and go — people you can’t imagine will populate your days and nights, braid themselves tightly into this story you’re telling.

There will be boats and trains and planes, mountains and valleys and oceans, coffee, champagne and cocaine. Bold brilliance and abject idiocy.

And then, later, an earned peace, muted passion, black tea.

Ultimately boring, yes, but so absolutely not. So absolutely perfect.

Also -

~ About that month in Greece — eat the damned olives. I know, you hate them, but you have no idea, you silly little teen with your mealy canned olives. And the lamb — try the lamb, it is succulent heaven and in a decade or two you will be haunting middle eastern markets seeking the best of these things, so get over yourself — you’re in Greece for fuck’s sake! —eat the lamb and the olives and everything else they give you. (I do understand your horror at the goat carcass blocking the doorway — however, you must eat it at the celebratory dinner.)

~ The cute blonde sailing instructor with the freckles and the money? Run. Don’t look back, don’t mourn, don’t write that letter. Do not get on the train.

~ Don’t get cocky and entitled about your easy health, your lack of hormonal crisis. You don’t know menstrual cramps and your pregnancies will be golden but you will pay, with maximum interest, when menopause comes calling, so tamp the smug satisfaction with your bad self, honey. Drink less, sleep more, learn to say NO — train’s coming and you’ve got nowhere to hide. That friend who missed school for two days every month? She was your warning and you were blithely dismissive of her odd ways.

~ Don’t stand in line overnight for tickets to that Springsteen show. It is so not worth it.

~ Don’t spend one minute of that lovely trip to Mexico on the phone with that ridiculous man. Run around in the rain with your best friend, let the Mayan ruins magic away some of your youthful self-importance, but stay off the damned phone!

~ August 28, 2008, 3:30 a.m. Sit down. You’re going down anyway, just sit down now and save us some trouble.

Basically, you’re on your own — but we’re in it together, if that makes any sense. Be kind, especially to yourself. Keep me in mind, please. I will have to clean up all your messes and suffer the consequences of your folly, so chill out.

It will be okay — even when it’s not, it will be.

And write it down please, so I don’t forget it all. Just write it down.