For a school trip in eighth grade, each kid in my class wrote a letter to our future selves. The letters would be mailed to us at the end of our senior year. I had totally forgotten, until I received it in the spring of 2003. I wrote “Dear Nicole,” then all of the things that I hoped would happen in high school. “Do really well in school, you can do it!” was one of them. LOSER. No. Whatever that’s cool. At the time, school was a horror show because I had a multitude of undiagnosed learning disabilities. “I hope you have a really great boyfriend who loves you,” my 14-year-old self wrote to the 18-year-old girl she hoped she’d be. Looking back can be mortifying.
Apparently, not in my Grandma’s case. “I was very smart. I did well in school, except for Chemistry,” she says about her own high school experience. Chemistry was difficult for me, too. But then again, so was distinguishing my left from my right and also, everything. “I failed a chemistry test three times,” Grandma continues. “The teacher had it out for me. I got a 64. I asked him to just give me a 65 so I could pass. He said, ‘no.’ So, I called him a b*st*rd.” My Grandma is Nicki Minaj.
Lesson One: Do your best, and don’t let anyone keep you down. (But also, probably don’t curse at a teacher?)
“Did you have a boyfriend?” I ask her. “A new one every other week. I had rings galore! But I gave them all back.” Why did she accept class rings and then almost immediately give them back? “Because I didn’t love them anymore.” My Grandma is Zsa Zsa Gabor.
Lesson Two: Don’t waste people’s time, especially your own.
“I wore beautiful clothes, sexy clothes,” she says about her younger self. “Why did you wear sexy clothes?” I ask. “Because I was a sexy woman! I was thin and had a nice pair.” GET IT, GIRL! That is now my favorite thing she has ever said. “I had long hair and I braided it across the top. I wore cashmere sweaters, the hoop skirts and I wore jeans before it was popular,” she says, very matter-of-fact. Grandma continues, “I used to go shopping in the boy’s stores to buy them. People thought I was crazy.” My Grandma is Kate Moss.
Lesson Three: Who cares what other people think?
As you may recall from Part 2, my Grandma was a war widow. As a young woman, she went back to school and became a dental hygienist. As you may also recall from Part 2 that my beautiful, flaming haired Grandma liked to wear red pumps with a red bag and was jokingly referred to as “The Broadway Bum”. In 1951, she walked into a clothing store to buy a cashmere sweater. A salesgirl stopped her, “I don’t think that’s for you. Its expensive.” Grandma tells me, “She turned her nose up at me! I said, ‘Look outside, that’s my car.” It was a green Ford with green and black leather interior. Grandma continues, “I told her, ‘I paid for it myself. Don’t judge people by the way they look. You just lost a big sale.’” I can help but ask, “Then, did you come back the next day with lots of shopping bags and say, ‘Big mistake! HUGE!’” She didn’t know what I was talking about. My Grandma is Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.
Lesson Four: See Pretty Woman! Don’t not get that reference.
Is it possible that as we get older, we stop cringing over the person we used to be? Hopefully, we begin to celebrate our younger selves without judgement because they lead us to all the things that we are. But why wait until later? My Grandma reminds me constantly, “Live for yourself, and be happy.” So celebrate and respect yourself in the moment, as life happens. Oh, and start thinking of yourself as a “very smart girl with a nice pair”.
Image via glamourdaze.blogspot.com
I love my Grandmother so much! She’s an amazing woman and I admire her for all she’s done
Raising me wans’t easy! Ha ha It’s so nice to read about yours… I share these posts with mine- we re-live our past together! Thank you!!
You have inspired my to write my about my own grandma. I don’t make her sound half as nice as your grandma, but I had fun with it
feel free to take a looksie http://karolinewithak.tumblr.com/post/9306704304/things-ive-learned-from-my-grandma
You’re grandma’s amazing! I always search for these when I get on hellogiggles. I have to know though. Was she ever a Judy Garland fan? I love that era and enjoy hearing about the Hollywood part of it from people who lived during that time.
Your grandmother is an inspiration for us smart girls with nice pairs everywhere!
Haha! YES!
You grandma is awesome! I adore those stories, Thanks for sharing, now we can all learn from you amazing grandma!
Thanks for reading!!
I hope that I am half as cool as your grandmother when I am of a certain age! Keep up the posts…they are the highlight of my day when they are posted!
You are so sweet. Thank you so much for reading!
I adore your grandmother. Can I adopt her?
I wish she could have met my maternal grandmother… I think they would have been friends. I wish she could meet my mom, I know they would be friends.
I also now want to watch Pretty Woman…
haha! love it.
You are really lucky to have such an amazing and insightful grandma!
Thank you, I definitely am. And thanks for reading!
Nicole, im a big fan of this series and your work in general. when will you be back in nyc? I live there. Can i meet this magical woman?
Soon! YES! xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Thanks for sharing all of these wonderful wisdom filled stories of you and your grandma, I really enjoy reading them!
Thanks so much for reading!
This is awesome! I love this, your grandma is a sassy strong woman! More power to her!
She is! Thanks for reading!
i absolutely love reading your series of posts about your grandma! she reminds me a great deal of my own and your posts always remind me of how lucky i was to have such a great role model in my life. thanks
That is so sweet. Thank you so much for reading
I can really tell that you treasure having your grandma in your life, and that is wonderful. I only had one grandma alive when I was born, and she passed away when I was in 7th grade. She taught me that girls can ride motorcycles, that lipstick should always be in your purse, and that boys are not better than girls.
Keep treasuring your grandma. I love this series.
I LOVE THOSE! Thank you so much for your kind words, for reading, and sharing!
I absolutely adore your grandma!!! Can we share? lol Its true though, once you start getting older you start caring less and less what others think and really enjoying your younger self. I do wish that I would have had that attitude when I was younger so I could have just as colorful stories to tell
Its never too late! Thanks for reading, and sharing!
This is one of my favorites nicole! You really portray her well.
Write tons more please!
Thank you so much Devon! I am coming home in a few weeks, lets sit down and ask her more about Dottie! xoxoxox
I’m seriously planning to save all this grandma posts in some time capsule untill I have grandchildren in order to give them the very same advices and life lessons… XD
Haha thank you!
i seriously love this series. your grandma rocks
Thanks for reading! She does.