bookmarked

Tonight, sitting alone in the office, I discovered my old bookmarks. Somehow, I logged myself into my Google Chrome account, an action that pulled up the pages and pictures and videos I had once deemed important enough to bookmark on a computer I haven't been on in honestly probably a year. Bookmarks from late 2013 all the way back to college.

I organized my life on the bookmarks bar. My hopes and dreams and favorite websites are captured on this bar. There are FOLDERS for goodness sake. I was organized. And had much more space in my life for exploring the internet to find said hopes and dreams and websites. Since I don't journal, this is about as close to re-experiencing a time in my life that I'm going to get. So bear with me.

I think back to senior year/newly employeed me, as she was the lady who'd be making this masterpiece of a bookmarks bar. She was faced with uncertainty (will I get a job? will I ever get married? will I have to move?) and clearly worried about it (evidenced by the bookmarks for the Georgia Tech job search site, the sections of the Good Women Project on Singleness and Waiting, an article called "The Soulmate You Deserve," and ohmygosh ChristianMingle). She was pursuing God (bookmarks for favorite sermons, devotionals, worship songs and faith-based blogs). She had dreams of travel (bookmarks for fancy luggage and several cooking classes in New Orleans) and pretty things (sparkly earrings and a necklace I'm glad I didn't get in hindsight). But mostly, she was still me. 

We have a tendency to look back at ourselves and laugh about how ridiculous we were given our current vantage point. But one of the of the things that disheartens me most is when others don't take me or my words/actions/beliefs/etc. seriously...when they toss them aside or laugh them off. So when I look back at who I was last year or the year before that and laugh or roll my eyes at the bookmarks for culinary schools and hair curling tutorials, I'm acting in a way that belittles who I used to be, casting her to be small and silly and ignorant. 

I am hereby shifting my perspective on self-retrospection to one of gratitude and respect for the person I was. She really had a lot going for her. She dreamed big and had a whole world of possibilities at her feet. She was thoughtful and intentional and generous. She carved out time for things that were beautiful and nurtured her soul, things like the recordings of piano and violin duets and a picture of the imperfectly-perfectly frosted cake. Scriptures for the morning and for the evening. A English-French translator.

So, in an effort to change my ways and make reparations for laughing at who I was, a letter to the past. 

Dearest, sweetest Mary Margaret Swanson of 2012-2013, 

I admire you. 

I admire your sense of independence and adventure. Your love of music, your pursuit of your God, and your passion for beauty. Who you are and what you do matter. Don't forget that. Your little acts of faithfulness and love and kindness matter, and they inspire me to slow down a bit and be more like you.

I hope future us has the grace to look back on me and you and this silly little blog with respect and admiration. And I hope it puts a smile on her face the same way finding these few dozen bookmarks has for me. 

You're turning out fine. So relax a little, but not all the way, because some things in life are worth getting all worked up over. 

Love,

Mary Margaret Phillips

December 2014

Mary Margaret Swanson - Summer 2012 - Innsbruck, Austria 

(where, she would be quick to tell you, she traveled alone)

photographer: some kind Austrian stranger