Sunday Series: Letters to Granny

Letter 5 January 30, 1984

January 30, 1984

Granny,

Gosh, it’s a beautiful day! It’s only 10:00 AM and it’s already near 70 degrees!! It has been like this for 4 days now! We went down to the beach yesterday and threw some football. Todd was running around with no shirt on! That’s Todd right?

Dad called last night. I talked to all 3 of them. They said there is a winter storm on its way!? Did it come? How’s Gramp’s doing? Be sure to tell him we said hi. Todd and I are doing great! Payday is tomorrow! Yea!! I wish you guys could come down. It’s an awful long way here! Ricky said he’s going to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida on spring break! That’ll be nice. I think I might walk over to Val’s and then go down to the beach. It’s to nice to stay inside! I’d better close now. Sorry about not writing but I had to get a stamp!

Love you both

Kim

P.S. Todd always says hi, but I forget to tell you!

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February 4, 2024

Dear Younger Me,

I find myself struggling to write to you today. Not because there isn’t anything to say but because there is so much. Our family has so many layers of complexities, ones that you don’t even realize you carry with you for decades. So much to unravel and reveal that it’s hard to put pen to paper sometimes. Hard to know what to share that will be helpful to others who might read your letter, younger me. We’ve learned so much through the years that where does one even begin?

There are days that I am thankful for our story. Girl, we’ve got the moxie and tenacity we have because of our story. You don’t even realize how dysfunctional life was because that’s just how things were. You always thought you were weak, fragile when really you were building muscles all along. We’ve used so much of what we’ve experienced to help others and that is magnificent. I’m truly grateful. But if I’m totally honest…

There are days when I want a “normal” history. Parents who loved each other and stayed married. That don’t have the lore of a daytime soap opera with paternity tests needed, Go Go dancers named Nancy, creepy uncles, long lost siblings discovered, alcoholic or gambling or old stepdads (yes that’s plural). I wanted Grandparents who had us over for sleepovers or took us on fun trips to the zoo but ones that we didn’t live with because our parents were a mess. It doesn’t take away my gratitude for them taking us in, caring for us and providing all that we needed. I simply wanted them to be able to be grandparents and do grandparenty kinds of things.

Maybe I feel like these letters to you are gloomy and pessimistic always drudging up the past. But it’s the past that makes us who you become and who I am today. It’s so easy to look at someone who has fought hard to get where they are and only see the white picket fence, 2.5 kids (or in our case 5) and a marriage that has lasted (not without struggle) and not see the road on which they’ve walked.  

Maybe that’s why I want to share the stories. Not to be gloomy, but to give hope. Not to be bleak but to let others know they are not alone as they sit with their own messy tales. Tales which take courage to tell.

For many years we will battle being ourselves, resist our history and swing that pendulum so far in the other direction. I was determined to not be like my parents. To stay married no matter what. To raise my kids waaayyyy differently than I was raised. And you do. But you know what, younger me, when the pendulum swings too far in either direction, it’s not healthy. At the apex on the other side of this was rigidity and religion and boxes to fit in. It was losing yourself to the idea of perfection.

There is no such thing! It was exhausting.

Fortunately, gravity has a way of helping us stay grounded. That pendulum cannot defy the laws of nature and stay on either side without eventually swinging back to center settling nicely somewhere in the middle.

I had someone recently send a message to me as she is still living it unfortunately regarding her messed-up family. But goes on to say, we had it better than they did and our children have it better than we did/do (I hope I’m not like my mom.)

To which I replied, Yes! Something I’ve learned now that all my kids are adults is that I may not have made the same mistakes and tried to do better, mistakes were still made. I think the difference is, I can admit them and talk through hard stuff with my kids.

Something I learned while being certified in grief recovery is that no one is either all bad or all good. As I have worked through the different relationships, I find this to be true. Those I vilified are not all evil and those I worshipped did not necessarily deserve the pedestal I put them on for years. It’s the pendulum coming to center.

As I continue to answer your letters, younger me, I will keep this in mind and will work on sharing the wisdom gained through adversity experienced without sounding too, oh, I don’t know, like too much or not enough, all bad and no good. (Or maybe I’ll switch to talking about the weather as that seems to be a neutral and popular topic with you. HA!)

I will leave you with this quote from Ann Lamott and maybe this will make you feel better and make you smile at the truth of it: You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better. Trust me, younger me, there was a whole lot of misbehavin’ going on!

I’d better close now as I’ve got to get this in the mail. Until next week.

Love you both,

Older Me