After years of painful failed infertility treatments in your early thirties, this woman will choose you and your husband to parent her unborn son and without her you would not be a mother.

If I could reach back through time, I would scribble a few very important words on a bar napkin and tuck it into those size 2 Gap jeans. It would look something like this: Remember Your Worth

Once your baby is earth-side, communicate with your support network and ask for help. Sometimes asking for help before you need it will enable you to avoid a meltdown.

Who the fuck cares what Erica thinks about your braids? She‘a looking at an STD by senior year

The reality of how much I took their love and support for granted, well into adulthood, is stunning. In some ways, I supposed, that's how life should be. Isn't that what unconditional love should be?

You will crawl out of your warm bed, sneak quietly away from the love of your life, while he snores the evening away, and write this letter, at the urging of a dear friend who doesn’t mind reading what you write. You will tiptoe past your youngest’s room so as not to wake the light sleeper of the house, and sneak into your elder daughters room and steal away her laptop to write this to yourself.

Always carry a blanket in the trunk of your car. There will impromptu picnics and downpours. There will be splendor. Let me repeat. Always carry a blanket in the trunk of your car.

You’re going to look back at things you said to parents before you were one and you’re going to feel like a real asshole

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.

Not every day will you suffer in silence, not telling a soul about why you are no longer the same. There will be a day that it all changes.

Your feelings are valid. It’s not bad to cry. It’s okay to have big feelings, no matter what your family tells you. It’s okay they don’t understand; you can’t make them. Don’t let them stop you or stifle your big feelings—use them to make big changes. Please know your acceptance of yourself is the only one you really need.

Here’s the hard and fast truth about our life: even when we didn’t -and honestly at times still don’t- want to, we’ve consistently lived to see the sun rise on yet another day. We learn and grow through it all.

Who the fuck cares what Erica thinks about your braids? She‘a looking at an STD by senior year

You’re going to look back at things you said to parents before you were one and you’re going to feel like a real asshole

Perhaps this note will be the whisper of hope you need to meet a basic stranger on Monday to take you to a room in a synagogue rec room full of people ready to support you. So, here is what your life is about to look like:

Unfortunately, our mental illness may be here to stay. It’s going to get better, and then it’s going to get worse.

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.

Our last big surgery for the foreseeable future is just days away. Our toes and our knees will finally face in the same direction! It all must sound ridiculous, but it’s exciting. All of these surgeries have put our life on hold, not entirely, but have taken away independence you didn’t even know mattered to us. Now we get to re-learn how to walk, ride, climb, board, etc. We aren’t going to magically be healthy, but I am so bloody excited.

Life will bring times of enormous pleasure and great pain, inexpressible happiness and unspeakable grief. Enjoy them or endure them, but know that they will pass and leave you richer for the experience. When it all gets too much to bear, you will find great comfort in the beauty of the world around you. The natural order of the smallest things will restore your soul's equilibrium.

People will tell you ‘good things come in small packages’ providing some comfort— until Great Aunt Emily callously points out ‘So does poison, dear’. You’ll need to grow a thicker skin rather than inches.

If I could reach back through time, I would scribble a few very important words on a bar napkin and tuck it into those size 2 Gap jeans. It would look something like this: Remember Your Worth

Here’s the hard and fast truth about our life: even when we didn’t -and honestly at times still don’t- want to, we’ve consistently lived to see the sun rise on yet another day. We learn and grow through it all.

The reality of how much I took their love and support for granted, well into adulthood, is stunning. In some ways, I supposed, that's how life should be. Isn't that what unconditional love should be?

You will crawl out of your warm bed, sneak quietly away from the love of your life, while he snores the evening away, and write this letter, at the urging of a dear friend who doesn’t mind reading what you write. You will tiptoe past your youngest’s room so as not to wake the light sleeper of the house, and sneak into your elder daughters room and steal away her laptop to write this to yourself.

Always carry a blanket in the trunk of your car. There will impromptu picnics and downpours. There will be splendor. Let me repeat. Always carry a blanket in the trunk of your car.

As your son grows up he will learn a word for each word dad forgets.

It may sound like a cliché, but the truth it contains is as enduring now as ever, for as Oscar Wilde puts it, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”