As today’s #Quest2016 prompt, Dr. Tina Seelig asks, “What advice would your future self a year from now give you today?”

As my Future Self is much braver than my current self, she made a video addressing this prompt. However, my current self had so much difficulty uploading this 2 1/2 minute video to the Tracking Wonder Facebook group that she has given up on trying to put it on this blog, and is settling instead for a transcript. So here goes.

Dear Present Self,

You are stardust.

You are the breath and bones of dinosaurs.

You are the daughter of a thousand mothers whose names have been swallowed up by history.

You are the heir to a fortune–a small piece of land, a vast word-hoard–won, sometimes, through bravery, honor, genius–sometimes ill-gotten, through plunder, pillage, and treachery.

You are the love-child of Annie Dillard and William Butler Yeats. You are the product of true love, and you have the power to break curses, but only if you remember who you are.

You are daughter, granddaughter, niece, cousin, sister, wife, mother, friend, teacher, writer, dreamer–but most of all, you are a collection of atoms that has never happened before and will never happen again. You are a constellation, and so is every being you encounter.

You are stardust.

Act like it.