{"id":574,"date":"2023-03-10T20:34:34","date_gmt":"2023-03-10T20:34:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/monicajwilliams.com\/?p=574"},"modified":"2023-04-23T03:50:16","modified_gmt":"2023-04-23T03:50:16","slug":"birthday-letter-2005-a-shout-seventeen-years-in-the-making","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monicajwilliams.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/10\/birthday-letter-2005-a-shout-seventeen-years-in-the-making\/","title":{"rendered":"Birthday Letter, 2005: A Shout Seventeen Years in the Making"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>For eighteen years, I&#8217;ve written a letter to myself on my birthday. I read the letter the next year, and then write a new one to my future self. Having just finished writing my 19th letter, I&#8217;m starting a series of posts in which I revisit and reflect on each letter to date.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In May of 2005, I wrote the first of what would become an annual ritual of writing letters to myself. I wrote this first letter two months after my birthday and instructed myself not to open the sealed envelope until March 9, 2006; my twenty-seventh birthday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the time, I was working through Julia Cameron&#8217;s book, <a href=\"https:\/\/juliacameronlive.com\/books-by-julia\/the-artist%e2%80%99s-way-every-day-a-year-of-creative-living\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Artist&#8217;s Way<\/a>, and preparing for graduate school in Sociology at the University of California, Davis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I want to be sure that I continue on a path that I want and not one that I feel like I should be on. It&#8217;s okay if I decide after one year or two years or even four years that grad school is not where I want to be. In order to be happy, I must do what I want to do.<\/p>\n<cite>May 5, 2005<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even then, I felt the pangs of potential conflict between the academic path I&#8217;d chosen and my creative writing instincts. Although I&#8217;d chosen academia, I gave myself permission to veer onto other paths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As graduate school progressed, I gradually forgot this life-affirming permission. Instead, the comfort of planned milestones and a clearly structured future forced my desires into a soundproof box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I must continue to nurture my life outside of school&#8230;I need to take 20 to 30 minutes every day for writing. Also, artist dates are very important. They don&#8217;t have to be anything elaborate, just one hour a week to myself to nurture my artist child.<\/p>\n<cite>May 5, 2005<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Despite imploring myself to feed and water the writer-artist within me, I allowed her to wither. During the first few years in grad school, I wrote fiction with a writing group whose support enabled me to draft an entire novel while writing my dissertation. By the time I accepted a tenure-track job, I wrote only occasionally in my journal and no longer considered myself a &#8220;real&#8221; writer. My academic self had fully overpowered the artist child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I want to remember these things because I think they are part of my ideal life. Do what I want, not what I think other people want me to do.<\/p>\n<cite>May 5, 2005<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@monicawilliams-516\/whats-next-9036c67b17f1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">My writer self eventually resurfaced<\/a>, first as a whisper and then as a megaphonic shout. Before reading my 2005 letter, I thought the voice had provided a major new insight into who I was always meant to be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now, I wonder why it took seventeen years to trust what I&#8217;ve known all along. Despite the long trip, I&#8217;ve finally circled back to my twenty-six-year-old self.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/monicajwilliams.com\/index.php\/2021\/08\/06\/ill-meet-you-there\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">I&#8217;ll meet you there<\/a>,&#8221; she said all those years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Finally at the trailhead, I reach for her outstretched hand and relax into the permission offered so long ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Want to be notified of new posts and publications?&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/monicajwilliams.com\/index.php\/contact\/\">Sign up<\/a>&nbsp;for my email newsletter!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Even then, I felt the pangs of potential conflict between the academic path I&#8217;d chosen and my creative writing instincts. Although I&#8217;d chosen academia, I gave myself permission to veer onto other paths.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letters-to-myself"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Birthday Letter, 2005: A Shout Seventeen Years in the Making - Monica J. 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