Postcards to my Younger Self (aka, “What I know now that I didn’t know then”)

November 22nd, 2009, posted by Aimee, Tags: Just For Laughs,Looks: Is This Mirror Working?,On The Career Track,Travel Tales: Are We There Yet?,WoMoLists

Do you ever reflect on all the things you know now as a grown-up working mom that you never knew in your younger, childless days?

The other day while doing research on a new business prospect, I found myself poking around a website geared at baby boomer women and saw a column that invited women to write a “postcard” to themselves as young women. Some of the messages were practical, i.e., “Don’t ever forget to label your boxes before you put them in the attic,” and others were poignant, “Don’t waste a minute of your precious time.” It got me thinking about what I might tell my own younger self – particularly the self that existed pre-WoMo days … even pre-mommy days period. Here’s what I came up with for me – how about you?

- Don’t ever complain to your (WoMo!) boss about insomnia … or wonder why your habit of falling into head dips during long meetings pisses her off. There’s a reason she drinks 10 cups of coffee a day and still taps her fingers impatiently when people are talking – when you’re older and juggling a school-age child and 80 hour/week agency job will you understand.

-Your instinct at 27 that you have reached the peak of your physical fitness and that there is no excuse for not running a marathon is … correct. Never again in life will you have 2-3 hours of “me time” on weekends to hit the gym and run the Golden Gate bridge. If you can’t get that body fat index down during your pre-WoMo days, you never will.

-Get off your butt and see more of the world – especially third-world, exotic locations requiring long train/plane journeys, vaccinations, backpacks and bottled water. Don’t waste a single vacation on Hawaii – that’s the most adventurous getaway you’ll be having for years to come once you both have a small child and only five days at a time off from work.

-Maternity leave is nothing like vacation. And lest you be tempted to book a trip to a beach destination post-partum, forget it. Pregnancy pounds + fussy, nursing babies + airplanes = no fun for anyone.

-Have faith and stick it out … Nate really is worth the wait, and so is motherhood.

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