The Things That Didn't Happen
Dear Earlier Emily,
I want you to know what didn't happen. First, and most importantly, you’ve been so lucky and, for lack of a better word, blessed, in that amazing things have happened to/for you in the past 20 years. As I write this, you’ve just moved from New York to Los Angeles— your dream come true, with your beautiful, healthy children and kind, loving husband. So many of your personal and professional dreams are realities. Miracles have happened.
But that’s not what I want to talk to you about right now. I want to talk to you about all the things that DID NOT happen, the things you spent so much time worrying about for the past 20 years.
No one fell down that steep, dangerous-looking staircase next to your apartment on Garfield Place— not your toddlers, not anyone’s elderly parents or visiting guests. No one cracked their head open on the rocky concrete below. Your parents didn’t die in a fiery car crash on their way driving to visit you. Your kids didn’t miss out on getting to know any of their four grandparents, the way you missed meeting Poppy.
Your son didn’t burn his hand on the stove. Your daughter didn’t fall from that stupid balcony at preschool. The scaffolding didn’t collapse on you or on your husband when it was outside your apartment on West 43rd street. That elevator that got stuck at work didn’t plummet to the basement with you trapped inside. The creepy guy who was always following you on the block near Fifth Avenue did not, in fact, rape or kidnap you.
All the planes you took didn't crash, all those cancer scares were benign. Your mammograms have been clean (thank G-d, knock wood, tuh tuh tuh, etc.). The tumor in your left leg is benign, and it hasn’t ruined your life with pain. You can’t go running anymore, but let’s be real, Emily, you never loved running. You’ll survive. You didn’t get West Nile, Zika, or any other strange, mosquito-born illness. You didn’t get sick from the food in Mexico— in fact, you should really go there again, because that trip would’ve been so much fun had you not been so fixated on the fear of getting sick from exposure to the water.
That really was just a spider bite on your daughter’s precious baby skin. She’s also not allergic to apples, FYI. She is allergic to amoxicillin, but you weathered that emergency pretty well, and she’s fine. Your son isn’t totally scarred from that time you got lost on the subway with him, and without spare diapers. You never burned either of your kids with too-hot water in the bath— you really didn’t need that thermometer in there.
And I know— it’s hard for me to type all this out now— anxiety and superstition and fear grip me and you from even writing the scariest words. So you’re not cured, for what it’s worth. You’re still anxious. Thank goodness for medication and therapy, because you’re managing it really well. But I still want to tell you not to waste too much time over the next 20 years worrying about the random, statistically-unlikely things that might happen. You have a beautiful life. There have been bumps. There will be more. But you can handle it, and there are people who love you who help you through those bumps, and you help them through theirs.
I also want you to know that all that worrying isn’t a complete waste of time. Some of it is okay. Some of it is who you are, it’s in your DNA. It’s linked to your creativity, your imagination, and you’ve learned to channel it into books and stories and art. I’m not saying to lean into it or anything, but respect it a tiny bit. Medicate the hell out of it, but don’t be mad about the bit of anxiety that remains. It’s kind of your superpower.
It’s how you knew that you couldn’t possibly live without your boyfriend, and that even though you both were very young, you had to marry him. It’s how you knew that you had to take your baby to the doctor that time, and thank goodness you did. You knew you’d regret not having a second kid. You knew you needed to move across the country. So thank your anxious little mind every once in a while. She’s always whirring away, trying to help. Give her a Zoloft and tell her to relax, but don’t ever be sad she lives inside you. You two are going to have some great adventures together. And it’s all going to be okay.
Love,
Emily