Dear Gail, Love Gail

Julia, Keiko, Camille, Jane, Elaine, Beth, Heidi and Al - this is for you.

Here's a shocking fact - I've been part of a google group for people who graduated Bryn Mawr and Haverford in 1982, and it's been one of the best parts of this year. I know some of the people in the group - I remember them and their names - and many I do not. They are by and large people who I think enjoyed our college years. They are people who wanted to stay in touch. They are people I mostly would not have talked to in college, or people my friends and I laughed at. And guess what? They are smart, funny, incredibly talented and successful and best of all, they're all about turning 50, like me. We've had some great discussions - about lesbian moms, about aging parents, about being old parents, about health care, about many things I care about.

Now there's a photo of me from shortly after college years, it's a photo of a bunch of us actually, me and a group of college friends in 1985, and it's on facebook, and recently a friend from those days wrote - "the photo that should be burned!" and others made similar remarks and I feel sad.

Because one of the great gifts of my life has been the way G-d has given me opportunities to revisit every part of my growth with love and tenderness. That's what the google group has done for me this year. The folks on the google group are likely folks who were always way better adjusted than myself.

Because here's the truth about my college years - I went to college at 16 and a half years old. I was addicted to drugs and alcohol. I was way too young to be on my own and I was scared. I was affected by buried childhood trauma that has followed me all my life. I was a self-centered person and careless in the way I treated others. I did things I'm not proud of, things that damaged myself and others. I cared deeply about my friends but I chose my friends based on a set of values I no longer hold. I was very bright but very stupid. My mother worried I would not see my 20th birthday. I'm lucky I survived and in honesty I owe a great debt - to my friends from those years (I love you all) to the college that despite a not-so-benign neglect offered some kind of safe container for my acting out, to my teachers who connected with me, to my family who never gave up on me and to G-d who saw me through.

One of my favorite writings is an essay in a book called "To Weep and To Sing", a collection by women scholars of religion about their lives. The essay, "Dear Chris, Love Christine", is a woman writing, with great love, to her younger self of 20 plus years ago. I am so grateful to be able to look back with love and compassion at all we were, and so grateful for the journey that has taken me far from there. I don't want to burn the picture. Today, I can put it on my wall with love.