Note to Self

One of my favorite segments on CBS This Morning is their beautifully produced series “Note to Self,” in which prominent people write essays to a younger version of themselves. Even when it’s a person I don’t necessarily relate to, the pieces never fail to make me cry, because the concepts of time, nostalgia and introspection ring true for all of us.

And almost always, the person breaks down as they read their words out loud, because the exercise is really about the person they are today, and the challenges, heartbreaks and successes that connect them to that younger self.

This week marks 20 years since I moved to Atlanta. Twenty years! Since before the year 2000. Almost half my life. My entire adult life.

All of these facts astonish the current me. So I thought I’d take the opportunity to write a note to the young Chrissie who arrived here two decades ago.

——-

Dear 1998 Chrissie,

Oh, Chrissie. Let me hug you. You are so scared.

You’ve been dreading this day since about 8th grade. That’s when you became aware this moment was coming, when you would have to leave home, be an adult, start your life.

It’s also the first day you’ve had without a plan. Before, you knew junior high was next, then high school, then college. It was all laid out for you.

Now, you’ve come to Atlanta to start an internship program, but that’s only going to get you through the next 10 months. You’re not sure what comes after that, and that terrifies you.

Orientation week tour of what was then the new Turner Field.

As you and your parents reach the city limits after a two-day drive, checking printed-out directions to the exit that will take you to your apartment complex, your stomach drops. You’re here. It’s starting.

The next day, you sit dazed in the backseat as your mom and dad navigate foreign streets to find a Bed, Bath and Beyond. Your mom comments that you look tired and should take a nap when you get home. But you don’t even know where home is right now.

The moment eventually arrives when they drive off. You will realize later they are just as sad as you are, maybe more. You close the door in tears. Now what?

Your plan is to just get through these next 10 months in this strange new city, this beige apartment, this crowded commute to an overwhelming office campus. Even your clothes are new, and you feel like you’re playing the part of a professional adult.

You can’t wait until it’s over so you can go home to Chicago. Back to comfort, to your family, to the place where you are you. But what you don’t know right now, Chrissie–what seems impossible to imagine–is that you need Atlanta.

You need its distance. It will force you to be yourself, and not just who you think your parents want you to be. One day, when your sadness and homesickness are constant, you decide to talk to a counselor. You tell her your problem is being away from home, and that you need to go back.

She tells you in some cases, homesickness is actually a manifestation of guilt for enjoying being away from home. She forces you to see what you appreciate about where you are. And she makes you realize you don’t want to go back to Chicago, you want to go back to your childhood. And that, my sweet girl, is not possible.

I know, let it out. It’s hard.

You need Atlanta’s diversity. You grew up in an Illinois suburb that was 99% white. Your images of black people came from Chicago local news, from daily images of gang violence and housing projects. At restaurants, your grandmother would notify the table when a black family came in. Your mom was nervous about you moving to Atlanta because she heard a TV character once refer to it as a “chocolate city.” If she saw a black man with a beard and tattoos, she’d gently nudge you to cross to the other side of the street.

Atlanta will surround you with people different from you, and you will revel in its normalcy. In some work meetings, LGBTQ people are the majority. You go to malls, restaurants, grocery stores where you are the minority in the room. You feel the history of slavery and racism and civil rights seeping into your pores with the Southern humidity, and it changes you for the better. You still have a lot to learn, but for the first time in your life, you realize you still have a lot to learn.

One day you will remark to your husband how thankful you are that your son is being raised with this diversity as his default. You take a moment to recognize that one of your son’s teachers is a black man with a beard and tattoos, and he is one of the kindest people you’ll ever meet. Your son has no fear, no hint of why there would be fear. Instead, he smiles and runs to give him a big hug when he gets to class.

Oh, that’s right. You’ll have a husband and a son. This seems completely preposterous to you right now. And I can tell you even now, at 42, it sometimes still feels completely preposterous.

But it happens because you need the people you will meet in Atlanta. You need the coworkers and managers who recognize your potential before you do. They will gently guide you toward where you need to go.

You need the rooms of funny people you will find yourself in, laughing harder and louder than you thought possible. They will energize you with their embrace of what you thought made you different and weird.

You need the friends who see you unconditionally, who somehow innately understand where you came from and will support you wherever you’re going.

You need the friends who grew up here, who infuse you with their own love for Atlanta, for Georgia, and for the South.

You need the friends who are religious, who bring you into their churches and synagogues and feed your belly and your soul.

You need the friends who are fellow transplants, who are taking in the newness of this place right alongside you.

You even need the people who don’t become friends, or whose friendships are temporary. You need the bad dates and wrong boyfriends. They teach you to appreciate true connections, that interest is not the same as caring, niceness is not the same as kindness, attraction is not the same as love.

And most of all, you need to meet Alan. You’re not really one for dating. You seem to think the right guy will just walk into your life. And lucky for you, one day he does. When the two of you have Archie, you will be convinced fate brought you to Atlanta solely so you could meet this magical boy.

You realize you weren’t meant to go back home to your family. You came to Atlanta to move toward your family.

The years before then will become a blur, seen through tears shed over tragedies both real and imagined. But the clouds will clear, young Chrissie. Or maybe, more importantly, you will learn to live with the clouds. You will no longer believe that happiness is the result of perfection.

You will realize your problems, fears, insecurities, vulnerabilities, doubts and failures do not make you unique. They actually make you exactly like everyone else, and that realization will liberate you from the paralysis of your own expectations.

You are loved more than you know. What the people around you want more than anything is for you to love yourself as much as they love you. Your independence is not a betrayal, it is a celebration of what your parents taught you. Your success is not vanity, it’s an expression of gratitude to the people who believed in you. Your age is not a loss of childhood, it’s a gift of power and perspective for what adulthood allows you to do.

Give me another hug. It’s going to be OK, because you have the tools you need to make it OK.

I love you, and always will.

Sincerely,

2018 Chrissie