Notes From Self Digest #1

How conversations with a past version of me are helping me process my present and shape my future

Seven years ago I started keeping journals. Almost 30 journals filled, these mini time capsules capture a season of my life that changed everything, a life being figured out in real time.

My box of journals (not all). Perhaps the most difficult of all my possessions to part with.

The idea of letting these go in my move¹ brought me to tears. No, absolute devastation. I was not grieving the ideas or reminders held within them but that I’d be leaving behind pieces of me. The idea of destroying them was unimaginable.

Luckily my incredibly generous friend agreed to let me keep them (amongst other things I couldn't part with) at her house.

But something made me grab the first two books and make room in my overloaded suitcases for them. These books spanning January - August 2018 tell a story² that parallels the one I am currently living out. An earlier version of me stepping into the unknown, focused mostly on the next step in front of her, trying to (for once in her life) not figure everything out.

Last month I picked up book #2 which as it turns out starts with April 2018. As I read, I found myself stopping to re-write in my newest journal something past me had written. Then thoughts on it from this perspective 7 years in the future.

Sometimes I talk to that earlier version of me who didn't know what she didn't know.

And sometimes (more often than not) it's me listening to a version of me who didn't know just how much she did.

So in this safe and generous space that I've found on Substack I’ve started to share daily-ish notes from self (NFS) in Substack Notes. Now I'm taking this one step further and creating a weekly-ish digest of the week's NFSs.³

Part of this is simply a selfish way for me to continue this time capsule for myself, creating another layer of reflection that helps me process these echoes from the past. And part is for you, my readers (thank you!) who may not spend much time on Notes but might resonate with these multi-layered conversations across time. These digests will collect the week's notes along with any additional reflections that have surfaced since posting them.

At the end of each digest, I'll share a prompt or question to invite you into your own reflection, because sometimes the most illuminating conversations are the ones we have with ourselves.

Note From Self #1

But I’m a little lost and not sure where home is/will be. — Maghan, April 2018

It’s been 7 years since I wrote this and I feel so very much the same. But also different. Back then there was so much I didn’t know and soooo much more I didn’t know that I didn't know.

What’s different today is that I now know that it’s not necessarily about finding home but creating one. In the last 7 years I’ve made 7 different places home. Some for two or three years, some for only a few months (like now).

There are pros and cons to this rootless existence. Having experienced this now a few times I know there will be days I will embrace the freedom of it, and others where I break down crying for (seemingly) no reason.

There will be days I feel utterly lost and out of place, and others where I get lost on purpose just to see what I find.

Note From Self #2

If I know what I want I’ll be able to know what I’m willing to do to get it. — Maghan, April 2018

It’s true that in order to make a plan, to take action, you need to know what you are moving towards.

Also true, sometimes you can’t know what you want, what you need, until you start doing it.

Part of the journey is the discovery of what those possibilities are.

How do you know the difference?

I’ll let you know if I ever find out.

Note From Self #3

Don’t hold back from connecting dots no one saw were there. — Maghan, 2018

Oh past Maghan, if only you knew. But you don’t yet. And I love you for it.

It’s a strange and wondrous experience finding seedlings of current me in these pages. To realize that there was at least some part of me that recognized it and was starting to name it even if just in the privacy of my journals.

About a week after writing this note I would give my first Toastmasters speech (which then became my first post), an introductory one that fittingly centered around a Steve Jobs quote about how you can’t connect dots looking forward, only looking backwards.

And here I am connecting dots from my past as I write into the future.

Life is funny sometimes.

Note From Self #4

…and only if it doesn't take over my life (brain). — Maghan, 2018

I find the parenthetical here interesting….

I was so in my head back then (still am sometimes). I know my heart was there too, she just often got drowned out — the brain was so loud there was little quiet space to just feel.

I’m continuing to learn to balance the two and find they play nice together if you let them.

What was the “it” I was referring to here? Getting a job during my summer sabbatical. Just something that would help pay the bills and give me a little fun money. I didn’t end up going that route (me today kinda wishes I had…) probably because of this fear that any job (like all jobs before it) would take over my life, my thoughts, and make it difficult to take the time I so desperately needed.

Something else I continue to try to find balance with.

Note From Self #5

So yes, you might need to backtrack — sell it all and start again — but it can be done. — Maghan, April 2018

Yes you can, and you will.

Only the sell it all part will come later. In 2018 you were able to store most of your belongings at a friend’s storage space. But in 2024 and 2025, you’ll sell, give away, or toss 90+% of it. The furniture, the incredible amount of yarn and craft supplies you’ll accumulate, the clothes, the books (oh, I miss my books!), and so much more. You’ll have some kind friends and family store some mementos for you but mostly you’ll pack your life into 2 suitcases, a backpack, and a cat carrier (oh yeah, you get a cat…) and take off on a plane to a place you never expected to go.

That same lovely friend who is housing the rest of my journals took this photo of me taking my first steps into this new life.

It’s not backtracking. It’s beginning anew.

Note From Self #6 Part 1 of 2

I woke up this morning, looked around my room and thought I’m going to miss this place. I’ve been struggling with that this week - the doubt and uncertainty. The WTF am I doing? Should I just stay? It’s not that bad… —Maghan, April 2018

I may have been looking around my bedroom in NYC at the time but I recognize now that there was more I’d miss. It was the life I had built, the familiarity of not just home but work, proximity to friends, to the ebb and flow I’d become accustomed to.

This wasn’t the first time I’d felt this way and clearly wouldn’t be the last. It’s a hard thing to reconcile, that the place that you inhabit that holds so many of the things and people you hold dear, is not the place for you.

I felt similarly last month as I was making my final preparations for this move. But now that I’m on the other side I can’t imagine anything different.

Note From Self #6 Part 2 of 2

And just a few paragraphs later I found myself writing about anything but staying…

What I really want to do is travel. To test out places - see what feels right. Who knows? Maybe in the end I’ll find NYC is the place. Maybe I’ll find something or some place unexpected. — Maghan, April 2018

I smiled reading this. Because I had such a small limited view of it. At this point in my life I’d briefly considered moving abroad but I never really ever let myself believe that I’d be able to do anything but be a tourist.

And now here I am, not quite a tourist, but not yet not a tourist.

Another in-between place.

Sometimes ideas take years, decades to move in us.

And even more time to become really real.

A Conversation With Your Past Self

These journeys through my old journals have been revelatory. I keep finding pieces of my current self hiding in the handwriting of seven-years ago me. In a way, I feel like I’m processing my present through my past.

I wonder what you might find if you looked back at an earlier version of yourself. Perhaps you have journals tucked away somewhere, or old emails, or social media posts that capture a moment in time. Maybe it's just memories of a particular season in your life.

Consider a version of yourself who was facing something that feels somehow similar to a current circumstance.

What would you tell that version of you?

What wisdom have you gained that they could use?

And perhaps more importantly, what could your present self learn from them?

Sometimes our past selves were braver than we remember. Sometimes they were wiser than they knew. Sometimes they were simply doing their best with what they had where they were. Just as you are today.

If you feel called to do so, I'd love to hear what emerges from your own conversations across time. What dots are you connecting between then and now?

Until next week's notes,

Maghan

1. Last month, after almost 2 years of planning, I moved to Europe. Just me with 2 suitcases, a backpack, and a not-so-happy cat in a carrier. I'm currently in Vienna which is not the city I thought I'd be in but now feels like the city I need to be in. Time will tell…

2. In early 2018 I resigned from my job but was lucky enough to obtain agreement to stay on until I figured out my next steps. Initially I thought I’d simply update my resume and look for another job in another advertising agency but around April the idea of taking part or all of summer off took hold. There was a lot I didn’t, I couldn’t, know about what was to come at the end of that summer and beyond — the heartache, the grief, the challenges. I couldn’t know that 3 months would turn into 9. But that’s getting ahead of the story.

3. A shout out and a thank you to my pal

Steve Arensberg

who inspired this digest idea. For almost a year he shared 37 weekly digests of his daily haiku practice on Substack Notes. They were a bright spot to my week as I hope my version will be.