To my future child

To my future child,

I do not know you yet but I know that if and when you come along you will be borne out of love, and my love for you will be great. I will see my face in your eyes and want to protect you from the world that I have known. I have to warn you, it is a wild and unfair world out here. But it is beautiful, too.

You will explore. You will be born with a deep-seated desire to roam free. If you are anything like me you will find it hard to stay in one place for too long. You’ll go from running around the school playground to running across the globe in the blink of an eye. Never stop running. I hope you find everything you search for. Just remember: it is always better to run to something than to run away. Your little legs will never carry you so fast and far that you can run where your worries won’t find you.

You will be wise. In all your exploring and from all your family you will learn a great wealth of opinions. Remember that they are just that, and for as much as we think we know, you must always find your own answers and learn your own lessons. I won’t be able to teach you everything. You have to want to learn. Inquire, and knowledge is yours to acquire.

You will love. One day you will meet a boy or a girl who makes your heart flutter. You won’t understand it at first, you may fight it, but you will grow to love it. Above all you will grow to love him or her. You will want to share all the best parts of yourself with them; your roaming soul and wise mind, but also your most private laugh. Share yourself. You learn more about yourself in love than you can ever hope to by traveling through this world alone.

But you will get hurt. When you are still young you will fall and scrape your knee. If you’re anything like your grandfather you may break some bones falling out of a coconut tree. These physical injuries will teach you how to overcome pain. And that is a lesson you will need to learn. Because the only thing more painful than broken bones is a broken heart. Whomever you choose to love may not always love you in the same way. Or maybe you won’t always love them. For something so inspiring, love can be fickle and cruel. There is nothing in this world quite like your first heartbreak. I wish I could save you from it, even now, but know that this is a right of passage. First, they will help you find your heart in a crevice of your chest that you never thought to look. Then they may break it. They won’t do it on purpose, but if and when it happens it won’t be easy. Know that I will still love you, through your first and your last heartbreak (and any that come in between). Know that picking up the pieces is the most important part of growing up. You must first learn to love yourself before you can fall in love with another, but you must also learn to lose love before you truly appreciate it.

(Dear future child, I have not met your father yet. But I know that I will. And I know he will be a good man. He’ll teach me how to love myself in ways I can’t yet imagine. And I will be true to him, always honest and always devoted – no matter how hard it gets. These may sound like grand promises to your young ears, but when you know love you will know that honesty and devotion come easily with the right person. If they are not easy, the person is not right for you – and this may be the hardest lesson of all to learn.)

Above all you will be strong. I know this because I learned my strength from your grandmother, and she is the strongest woman in the world. She learned from her mother and I promise you I have never met a more inspiring woman than my grandma. If you are half the woman she was you will be M I G H T Y. You will learn from all my nagging lessons, but you will teach yourself the ways of the world too, and from that you will teach yourself how to survive: how to survive an embarrassing school performance or a disastrous expedition, and how to survive a bruised knee or a broken heart.

I believe in you.
I know all this because I learned not just from my mother, but from my own follies through this world. And you will too.