Dear Maddie & Andy,

Second…brussel sprouts are disgusting. They are NOT needed for survival, should never have been meant for human consumption and if someone claims to like them you should not hang around that person.

That saying…”sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”…..completely wrong and BACKWARDS. Physical wounds heal. Words hurt. Sometimes so deeply that they never heal. Choose your words carefully.

And most importantly….that saying “LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP”. OK this is where I may get hammered. The following opinion is just that…an opinion…MY opinion. Its taken 43 years to come to this conclusion so maybe you should take 43 years to make up your mind about it but I do want you to know what I’ve learned.

I looked before I lept for a LONG LONG time. In fact…I often looked so long that I never lept. I mulled things over, thought them through, weighed pros and cons of leaping, had panic attacks over what if I made the wrong decision and lept when I shouldn’t….years of this. Years of anxiety over not knowing what decision was right. Worries and concerns about the repercussions of the decision I’d make. What if the leap failed? What if what was on the other side was awful. Or scary. Or worse…what if I FELL? How embarrassing. What if I regretted the leap? What if I hurt somebody or made a mistake or…..lord have mercy what if the PLAN failed. You always needed a plan. A well- laid- out- plan. And spreadsheets and graphs and charts and reasons to and reasons not to….it all needed an order.

And then a motorcycle accident and then Brain Rot and then Hashimotos and all of a sudden the leaping part seemed so easy. How silly. Why in the hell had I wasted so much time on the safe side pondering the “what ifs”. Time….its a funny thing ya know. One day you are 17 making out in the backseat of your car (I hope  my Mom doesn’t read this) and worrying if your “cool jeans” are clean for the next day then BAM…you’re 43 with 2 teenage kids a husband with brain rot and a WHOOOOLLLE lot of responsibilities. Time flies. It. FLIES!!!

So Im telling you there is not time to stand on one side and ponder and wonder and think it through. Im telling you to JUMP. LEAP. LEAP before looking. I know its counter-intuitive. I know it goes agains all of your instincts. I know its scary. But it took me 43 years to realize that you will NEVER EVER regret leaping. You will only regret the time you spent on the safe side wondering……trust me. It may hurt, you may fall, you may get your heart broken, you may fail, you may be embarrassed…in fact I can almost guarantee ALLLLLL of these things. And good Lord I hope them for you. Those are things that life is made of. THOSE are the things that make a heart a HEART, a human a HUMAN, and fill your soul with character. I have no regrets…minus any hurt I may have caused others. I have no regrets about the leaps I DID take. It is VERY true that the only regrets in life you have are the chances you DIDN’T take. So take them all. You may move far away…that hurts my heart…you may date people I don’t approve of…I know that, I accept that…you may make decisions I don’t agree with…as it should be. Find yourself, jump, leap, stray…I will always and forever support that.

LEAP BEFORE LOOKING. Because for all of the scary, horrible, frightening possibilities that may lie on the other side….there just might be something way freaking cool too…and its worth the risk to find out.