Letter to my younger self

Hello.. it's Friday, and this is where I can share with you things colourful that are not on my nails..

On Thursdays at SeePrestonBlog they have a regular series where someone is featured to share a conversation you would have to the person you once were.

The following is my letter/conversation from me as I am now; to a girl, not yet a lady and far from being a woman..

Remember that secret trip you took last Saturday. In the terrible rainy weather.

Little Miss Independent, you set off like any other weekend like a teenager would do. But you had planned, using the Melways- the trip from your house to the station. Easy. Then by train; not into the city, but out to a place you had only heard of. Looking at the map you had to then walk to your destination- the cemetery there to farewell on your own someone you vaguely knew in primary school. You still had that photo from grade 6 camp and a funny story that he had written- long before the serious side of someone the same age as you taking drugs had caught up with them.

So from the train you were to walk the rest of the way to the cemetery- taking the main road- straight and long. You measured the distance on the map from your house to school first [25minutes walking]- then laid it against the map along the long straight road.

Not too far you thought. Just over 1 hours walk.

You set out walking- it was actually a main highway- no footpaths and the rain was falling- not heavily, but a constant mist that slowly saturated your hair into a frizz. Cars passed by, a bus also, but you continued along the straight road, getting sweaty from walking and also wet by the rain.

Then a car pulled up beside you- a man driving and a woman- you guess they are 50+ years old. They offer to take you, once they ask where you're going and you tell them they cemetery, up the road.

You get into their car.

I don’t think I would do that if this scene were to happen again at 16- but it did happen in the first place. After small talk, life and death- the car arrives, it was still quite a way if you were to continue to walk it, gradually going up a hill.

You politely thank them, and they reach into the back of the car and hand you a book. They drive away and you say your private farewells at the cemetery to a person you had no contact with for the last 6 years.

Sitting on the bus, going back to the station from the cemetery you pull the book out of your handbag. A God book. Paperback. About 300 pages from memory- a dark blue/ purple cover with a picture of sunshine gleaming down from clouds, onto a beach, I think.

I know you leafed through it on the bus home just to pass the time- and looked at the quirky cover here and there as you moved it around your room when you sometimes did a big tidy up. But I want to tell you even though no one in your family loves God today; you should keep the book the kind people gave you- just in case. Because although you have no idea just as yet, God is working in your life- He saw your struggle up the long road and those delightful Christian people came along. Please listen to me, I'm not one of those weirdo "you must turn to God or you will go to Hell" type people- I have matured as you want to, simply changing the things I live and love for in time.

And you don’t know it yet, but it will be your realization at 29 and 30 years of age- that there is a God- and He loves you- and He has placed key people with faith in your life when you have needed it. I wish you had kept the book, instead of putting it in a box to give to charity- the words in it may have new meaning now, providing strength in your new relationship with God.

You are ready for anything now.

Love me/ you at aged 30.
Happy, but thoughtful to what small changes here and now could mean for our future to still come...