Advice For My Younger Self

Posted on by stacybenedict

A number of bloggers have shared the advice they would give their younger selves if they could travel back in time. This reminded me of a high school exercise in freshman English class where we wrote a letter to our future self. The class was told to keep these letters and read them after college graduation. As everyone else, I discarded mine when we moved on to the next assignment. If only blogging existed back then, maybe I could’ve seen what I had written. I certainly don’t remember now.

Well, dear readers, I’m joining my blogger commandos. I’m grabbing my laptop, shanghaiing a TARDIS and diving into the blogosphere time warp to post advice to my younger, even cuter, pigtail wearing self.

Join me…

The doors to the time machine bang open. Thick, white fog stream through the doorway, momentarily blurring our vision. A car horn’s blast and an angry yell startle us out of our confusion. We’ve arrived in a strange land. Adult women wear baby doll dresses. Giant, neon logos adorn the front of men’s shirts. The locals growl in a language we think is English, but we’re not sure. Their coarse accent garbles every word. After a while, we learn we had landed in the right place…Staten Island, NY.

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There isn’t much time before the machine is programmed to return to 2017. We run to my former Catholic junior high school. Sneaking in is easy since this is before the Columbine High School massacre. We dodge leather faced robot nuns and racist Heathers to get to the girls’ locker area. I slip a handwritten note inside my old locker. The letter says:

Dear Stacy,

This message comes to you from the future. Take heed! Whatever you do, don’t watch CSI: Miami. It’s a terrible, terrible show that you will hate yourself for watching. The plotlines are Tartarus awful and don’t get me started on the acting. Trust me. You’ll never make good the time spent watching this bloody turd, no matter how many community service hours you rack up in college.

Invest in Apple and Amazon stock. Start saving ten percent of your lunch money for retirement right now. Few jobs offer pensions in my era. The way the country is headed beginning the year 2017, social security maybe privatized and you’ll have to work into your late eighties.

I’m obligated to write: Read more. Exercise for an hour, at least three days per week. Watch less TV. Practice writing stories daily. Don’t let anyone make you feel less than, ugly, dumb or unworthy. But…Who’s kidding who? You’re not going to do any of these things and people will make you feel like a slime mold no matter what. Learning from our faults, failures, and frustrations made us who we are. The good news is we didn’t grow up to be an actor portraying a Mala Noche gang member on a brain cell nuking farce of a police procedural TV show. Seriously, CSI: Miami does not deserve you.

If you don’t take any of the above advice, please, you must do this one thing, be kind to Mom. She’s a single mother raising two children on a salary that isn’t enough for one person to live on in New York. For years, she’ll teach nights and tutor kids on weekends to put food in the fridge, clothes in our closets and gifts under the Christmas tree. Right now you think you’re not so bad, but that’s not good enough. Mom will be tough on you, push you, console you, annoy you, support you and hand you her beating heart and soul. The least you can do is be understanding. She isn’t perfect but she is the perfect mother for you.

XXOO
Stacy from 2017

PS: Carbs are Hades’ minions so stay away from cupcakes. Okay, just don’t eat so many.

PPS: Don’t be fooled by the song “Toxic” by Crazy Town. That’s the only hit on the album. You’ll regret trading Tool’s Ænima for it.

We flee back to our time machine. Inside, lights flash and the engine whirrs. Everything shakes. Then, a light blinds us.

We’re back home to our cozy post-911-invasion-of-Iraq-Sandy-Hook-murders-Boston-Marathon-bombing-Orlando-nightclub-shooting-Donald-Trump-presidency time period. You know, modern times where we feel safest.

Hope you liked this week’s blog post and weren’t too horrified by my past musical tastes. What advice would you give your younger self?

You can read the first chapters of my urban fantasy series The Children of Ekhidna and Typhoeus on the books page.

Please let me know what you think by liking, commenting or subscribing.

22 thoughts on “Advice For My Younger Self”

  2. Yes, Stacy, I liked your latest blog very much. Great sense of humour. Made me ponder what, if anything, I would write to my earlier self, today. Hmmm. Investment advice – certainly. Music listening recommendations – definitely. A view of the present political debacle – probably not, wouldn’t want to depress even someone else’s earlier self. Hmmm, I might toss in some career advice – like: Don’t practice the violin 6 hours a day – you’re going to end up a writer. Save the college tuition, drop out, get a library card, read omnivorously and grab a book of basic grammar. (Don’t read it, of course, but just have it lying about to impress guests.) Oh, and become a vegetarian earlier in life so you can become a pain-in-the-ass to your friends even earlier.
    Maybe a few hundred others.

    Thanks for the laughs: I signed up to follow your blog. I’ll be looking forward to your next issue.

    TE Mark – Science Writer / Author

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    1. I like your advice to your younger self. Definitely agree about saving for college. Wow, you played the violin for 6-hours a day? That is awesome, maybe you can use that in your writing. Thank you for commenting.

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  3. Yes, 6 hours a day – Violin, Physics & Lit – 4- 6 hours, then the Classical Guitar, Viola and piano. Then chamber ensemble. Etc-etc I’m still trying to figure out how I managed to stretch each day into 38 hours, and how friends actually tolerated being around the nerdiest guy in this quadrant of the galaxy.

    Be well, Stacy. Catch you around netland.

    Oh, Hey! I just published a new blog on ‘Artificial Gravity’ in Sci-Fi / Fantasy and in real physics. It’s actually quite funny. The reviews have been awesome. If you have time, you may wish to give this one a spin: (Great resource for Sci-Fi / Fantasy novelists, so feel free to pass it on)
    https://temarkauthor.wordpress.com/2017/01/29/artificial-gravity/

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      2. I plan to do guest blogs and to reblog other followers’ posts in July when I start work on my next novel. If I see something that fits, then I definitely will. I prefer posts about mythology, writing, reading, blogging and marketing. Thanks for your comments. I’ve enjoyed reading a number of your posts. I can’t keep up with them all! Thank you!

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      3. Thank you for your kind comments. Not much on mythology…other than fairies in poetry. Haven’t done much in marketing…I did touch on a junior college course I took on macroeconomics…years ago! glad you like some here! You see…I am caught up with all the good stuff–including yours–and then have to keep up myself! 😀

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