Dear 2004

Ahhh, senior year of college.  Enjoying it aren't you, Lina?  Almost ready to start spring semester where your biggest stresses will be the "pain" of getting up early enough for your [paid!] Harrisburg internship and out the door to 1am adoration once a week.

What a wonderful time this will be, just as wonderful as you'd hope.  I don't even need to caution you to soak-in as many moments as possible because you will.  I have the memories to prove it.

Praying the rosary with [now Fr.] Chris on the academic quad on a warm spring night - perfect.
Curled up with your future husband [squee!], best friend and two future priests in the Quarry after Mass laughing and heatedly agreeing about how many angels can fit on the head of a pin - perfect.
Spring break in the Poconos - almost perfect.  [Unfortunately the laws of temporal mechanics prevent you from *not* jumping off the loft since it has already occurred, but oh girl.  Think it through!]

And then, after internships, late nights, oral exams, marriage prep and Sunday afternoons in the Devil's Den..... its over.

Graduation, a walk through the room where you went to Mass every Sunday evening for 3 years, and a great and wonderful drive to your new life in California.

That's why I'm writing - I'm about to do it all again.

In a few short months, I'm going to load up everything I own and follow that crazy man God gave to me to "live the dream" in Los Angeles once more.

But oh honeychild - how different things are.  Oh, if only you knew!

Some things are the same - will it all fit, will the car with a little too many miles make it, what will be waiting on the "left" coast....

But its so very different, too.  This time, instead of cramming everything you own into a '98 Plymouth Breeze with 80k and a roofrack that may or maynot fly right off the roof of your car and shipping one or two things, like Dad's hope chest -

The Army is boxing and shipping our stuff. [Yes. The *ARMY*.  Girl if you only knew. Also deployments. read up. They're pretty terrible but definitely survivable.]

We'll have an apartment lined up since Uncle John's invitation expired back in '04 [something about not making your bed. like, oh ever!]

We're taking a reasonable amount of clothes and entertainment in our 2008 Kia Sedona with 80k (negative on the roof rack.  Never let it be said we don't learn a lesson!).

Oh and 3 children.  (and two cats, but those bothers are flying out early and being boarded.  May 2005 - RETHINK YOUR PET PLANS!)

Yup.  9 years and 3 children later, you're driving to California again.  Its so nostalgic to do it again and have it be so different and yet so familiar.  So full of a new kind of hope, fresh and more mature but just as satisfying as 2004.  Full of more love (and tears) than you knew life could hold, full of the kinds of joy and pain that only living life will bring you.

Oh the things you will do! Oh the things that you don't appreciate right now!

You whiner.  Get to adoration!  If only you knew the ability to sit and pray and listen without anyone "needing" you or "touching" you.

Also, keep sleeping in.  Wring every last drop of sleep from your life that you can because the days of famine are coming.  You're going to do amazing things like birth your babies at home, in tubs, but pretty much not sleep again after 2008.  So soak it in.

I know, right? Babies! Birthing them! In your *house*!  Have you even heard of such things yet?  Pretty sure the most you know about childbirth is that it is required to have babies.  Hehheh.  Oh girlfriend, your hippiest days are ahead of you.   All those hideous flowy skirts and flared jeans you wore are just a foretaste of whats to come.

You made this! Who can even believe it? 

Get off your toucas and exercise once in a blue moon.  Ok, no I'm kidding.  Enjoy good metabolism and pre-kid pants while you can.  Just know that it won't last forever so live it up.  Because one day you'll be doing what you swore you never would - running.  Without anyone chasing you.  And its just as bad you thought but when you don't want to buy new pants....

                 

  This Jeff guy?  Now a Dominican. Crazy cool, huh?

I wish I could sit down with you for one of those Quarry milkshakes and tell you how odd it is to sit on the same bench you sat on outside Global Ed, wrangling your *two boy children* for a picture in the snow.  What would you even think about that?  What do you want from your life?  I wish, I wish I had written it all down when I was you because the first thing to go is your mind.

But I do remember trying to be conscious of soaking in the good times; of remembering Mt 6:34 and closing your eyes and living deep, deep within the moment.  And, I'm still doing it.  So in 9 more years,  I can look back on right now and remember these three wiggly monkeys all around me; I will recall snuggling on the couch watching Big Bang Theory with my husband; and I will remember that every day, He is making me more and more into the best kind of me.

So, Lina, its another California adventure for you - so hold on to your hats [do you like hats yet? You will. They're great! And so cute!] and enjoy your ride.  Soak it in, little me, because it only gets better from here!