Unaccredited, Poorly Sourced, Meaningless Advice To My Godchildren

Dear Zoey and Enzo,

Life is a funny journey. You see, it’s funny because it’s going to take sadness to know happiness, noise to appreciate silence and absence to understand presence. I wish, along with every other person at this reception that I could protect both of you from life’s not so funny moments, but I can’t, instead what I can do is make a few promises:

• I promise you’ll always be loved no matter who you decide to be in this life. No matter what traits you form and what flaws you possession, you’ll always be surrounded by unconditional love.

• I promise that three things don’t come back in life: ONE the spoken word, TWO the past life and THREE the missed time. Embrace your ability to express yourself in life, if either one of you take anything from me, I hope it’s a love affair with words.  Be careful of how you use your words and with whom you share them. Accept that life is comprised of days, weeks, months and years and know the difference between living in the past, present and future. Take risks, live a life with very few missed moments. Understand the beauty of the present moment because your character in the future will be determined by what you do in that moment.

• I promise you’ll have the ability and resources to accomplish and stay close to anything that makes you glad you’re alive. Be overly animated when it comes to your innate passion in life. Lean on your loved ones for the support and means you require in attaining what you desire from life. Get from us what you need to chase your dreams like you’re running from a bad nightmare. 

• I promise you’ll be tempted to make wishes. Don’t waste your time. Leave the wishes to Hallmark greeting cards. Make plans, set goals, recognize your highest priorities and have the courage to pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically say no to anything else that gets in the way.

• I promise people will try to convince you that good is good enough. Never forget good is the enemy of great and you both were destined for nothing less than grand greatness.

• I promise you’ll get hurt in life, it’ll be painful, but forgiveness is your friend. Make peace with not only the faults of others, but your own as well and you’ll be a lot less prone to getting hurt.

• I promise it’s worth it; this crazy yet brilliant, messy yet beautiful, ironic yet systematic life is absolutely worth it. 

• And finally I promise to be your cool aunt who says yes, when your parents say no!