Recently looking through some of my old books and files, I found lists. Very old lists of statements and instructions I had written when I was much younger. They were reminders, corrections. 

Those long-ago-collections took me on some surprising turns. To other places, to other seasons, to other times. 

It felt like a different me wrote those instructions. 

It seemed like I knew more then than I know now.

Maybe that is how life is. We age. New questions come. Pain and wounds grow. They stay in their place. They remind us of what we did not know, or what we ignored, long before. 

But my eyes continued reading a few of the old sentences. My hands held the paper as my heart felt like the instructions were not written by me. They seemed to be written for me. Then. At that time and on that day.

I guess an old list can become new. A few old words can turn into a new sentence, offering us a reminder of what aging has caused us to forget. 

I rewrote one sentence, edited it slightly, and saved it for my I-need-this-now collection. 

Do you have an old list to look at again? Is there something in those instructions you might need now? 

Read it. Save it. It might be just what you need today.