If you had the opportunity to have dinner with someone from your past, who would you choose? 

You’ve probably heard this question before, maybe choosing someone in your life who’s passed on.  Someone you miss and just want to talk to them again, hear their voice.  See their face one more time.  Smell their perfume.  Touch their skin.

Me?  I want to have dinner with my 20-year-old self.  She’s definitely someone from my past.  She had the world by the balls and she was having the time of her life.  I want to talk to that girl.  I want to get inside her head and try to figure out what she was thinking.  What she was feeling or not feeling.  Why she did certain things and said certain things.  Why she dressed the way she did.  I want to crawl inside that body and just take a look at the world through her eyes.  What was important to her?  What wasn’t?

I hear from other mom’s with kids around the age I was when I got married…how they are kind of self-centered and their focus isn’t necessarily on anything important.  I can sympathize with that person.  I was snooty and arrogant and thought I knew everything.  I made lots of mistakes.  I took things for granted.  I never thought I’d be fat.  I never worried about wrinkling up like a prune.  I took my health for granted.  I didn’t make certain people a priority. I took relationships for granted and now when I look back, I should have spent more time being and doing instead of making excuses.

What would happen if we could take our knowledge about life right now, and put it into the 20-year-old we used to be?  How would we have been different?  I want the 20 year old Robin to walk a mile in the 51-year-old Robin’s shoes.  How funny is that?  She’s gonna have a tough time walking with my gimp feet, that’s for sure.   I would tell her to “suck it up cupcake”.  I want her to see what her life looks like now.  I want her to see how the choices she’s made early on have molded the life that she has and the person that she has become today.

If I told 20-year-old Robin about her life as a 50 something year old, I know she would be mortified, but she probably wouldn’t believe me, because that’s just how 20-year-old know-it-alls are.  She would take one look at me and think, “that couldn’t possibly be me, that’s not my true story”.  I don’t think I’m a complete failure by any means, but as I look back on my life, I would have probably done a few things differently.  I would have gone in other directions.  I would have taken bigger chances.  I can say that now because of the person I AM now.  But the person I was “then” didn’t.  Wouldn’t.

I would tell young Robin to stop being so stuck up.  Quit taking yourself so seriously.  Appreciate your body type, enjoy it while you have it and quit worrying about sucking in your stomach.  Don’t hide behind your makeup, you’re pretty enough without less.  Let your hair get wet and don’t let anybody tell you aren’t good enough.  Dress the way YOU want to dress, funky wardrobe and all.  Put the windows down in the car and let the wind toss that mop all over your head, and laugh at yourself.   Don’t compare yourself to other people, you don’t know what their lives are really like.  Be a better mother, it’s one of the most important roles you’ll ever play.    Pay attention. Don’t stop learning.  Don’t be so mean, learn to control your anger.  Make more friends, don’t judge a book by its cover.  Quit making excuses, that will NEVER get you anywhere.  Try as hard as you can to put yourself in somebody else’s shoes before you judge them. Choose being kind over being right.  That’s a big one.  I still struggle with that on a daily basis.   Enjoy what God has given you, and be thankful.

Every.  Single.  Day.

I struggled to find a good song for this topic, but then I found this and thought, “perfect”!