We don't have to do it all at once: Letters to my younger self

We don't always have the wisdom we require at the time we need it. We struggle. We worry. Often, only later do our choices make sense to us. If you had to write a letter to yourself in 10 years addressing who you are today... what do you think you would have to say? It's good to hear it from people who have lived a long extraordinarily successful life... it gives great perspective.

I recently read a book, a compilation of letters that dozens of extraordinary women have wrote. The title of the book: "What I Know Now: Letters to my Younger Self." I have not yet read every single letter... but wanted to share a great one:

Dear Cokie,

Is this a life sentence? Will you spend the rest of your life with jelly stains on your knees? Will your kids ever sleep through the night?

Being a mother of two kids frazzles you because the utterly banal is, somehow, profoundly important. Nothing could be more mindless than wiping noses and pouring apple juice - yet you know there's no bigger job. For so much to hinge on so little is brain-numbing. It's as if world peace depended on how well you dust your living room. Worse, you were never any good at homemaking arts, apart from cooking. Now you're supposed to put toys away and clean out the tub as if your children's entire future success hangs in the balance?

This kind of absurd mismatch between day-to-day motherhood and the emotional charge it carries can be a little scary. Your kids, like all kids, are a pain in the neck sometimes. As a regular person in your regular life, you really don't get angry. But as a mother, you're shocked at your capacity for anger with your children. Instead of childish misbehavior, their transgressions seem like terrible reflections on you as a mother.

Here's my advice about the anger, chaos, and isolation. First, beware the dangers of extrapolation in motherhood. Despite his impressive tantrums, your willful son will not throw himself on the floor of grocery stores, screaming for candy, when he's grown up. Just because your daughter can't seem to stop talking now doesn't means she won't ever. Also, understand that this won't last forever. Don't feel oppressed by it. These are very short years in the scheme of life and you will live through them.

You're trying to fit everything in at once, working for a TV station and a magazine. But Cokie, you'll be in the workplace for fifty years, literally. There's no need to be doing it all at once. At times you do have to, but there are times when you don't. You can leave the work world - and come back on your own terms.

One more thing: There will be compensation! Your children will grow up to be charming and caring people - who will produce adorable grandchildren. Your willful son will someday have an extremely willful daughter. One of your daughter's sons will talk incessantly. And guess who will have patience for all of that and more? You.

Hang in there.

Love,

Cokie

Cokie Roberts -- Columnist and Commentator