I wish I’d had my voice memo flipped on, because she said this better than I’m about to write it. And how I wish I’d understood this at 16, or at 40 for that matter!:/

On our long drive home from a miserable tennis tournament, this is what she said (have I mentioned that everyone should try to spend lots of side-by-side time in the car with their kids?):

“A couple years ago, it occurred to me that I spent most of the time thinking about myself: how I felt, what I needed or wanted, wondering if I did something right or wrong and what people thought of me. Then I thought: probably everyone else is also walking around mostly thinking about themselves. That meant they didn’t have much time to be thinking about me. So I was wasting my energy worrying so much about what other people thought about me.

At the same time, it does matter a lot what I say to people because most of them are like I used to be and might worry too much about what I think about them (even though I’m not really thinking about them much after that moment). Words that don’t mean much to me might mean more to them than I realize.

So, I try to be careful what I say and remind myself to take what others say with a grain of salt.”

Right on, girl.