With a Little Help from Dolly

I have a Dolly Parton quote hanging in my office.

“Find out who you are and do it on purpose.”

I can remember writing those words on that little piece of notepaper in a hotel the week after I graduated from medical school.

That’s been a few minutes ago now…

This week, after Dolly Parton died, I’ve watched people share her songs and stories and favorite movie scenes all over socials. There has been a remarkable amount of grief for a woman most of us never actually knew.

It makes sense. When we lose someone who has been part of the landscape for a very long time, we aren't only grieving the person.

We remember who we were when they were there.

The songs our mothers played. The movies we watched over and over. The person we used to sing with in the car. The house we lived in then. The version of ourselves who knew every word.

Maybe that’s why I keep looking at that quote.

When I first wrote it down, I thought I was still trying to find myself. I had just finished medical school. I was figuring out what kind of doctor I was going to be and, if we're being truthful, what I was supposed to be when I grew up.

These days, I spend at least as much time looking backward.

Not because childhood holds some perfect, untouched version of us. It doesn't.

But there are clues there.

What did you notice before somebody told you what you should notice?

What did you love before you decided whether you were good at it?

What did you avoid?

What made you feel comfortable or more curious?

And yes, because apparently I can eventually turn almost anything into a conversation about the human body, I think about food this way too.

My mom recently told me a story about my first ice cream cone.

I was two. She bought me an ice cream cone and an unsweet iced tea for herself. (Midwest in the 1970s. Who knew from sweet tea?)

We settled in with our treats. I took one bite of the ice cream, handed it to her, and took her tea. A couple of years later, Mom figured out that I was allergic to milk.

Was two-year-old Melissa conducting a sophisticated elimination diet? No.

But I find the story interesting.

I also hated tomatoes. They were slimy, which was my official complaint. I had significant allergies as a child, and today I know that tomatoes are one of the foods that can be troublesome for some people with histamine-related symptoms.

Was histamine why I hated tomatoes?

Maybe or maybe they really were just slimy.

That's the important part.

Looking backward can give us clues. It doesn't give us diagnoses.

I passionately loved strawberries and spinach, after all, and both appear regularly on the lists of foods to avoid when you start researching histamine. So much for the inherent wisdom of a two-year-old.

But that's what I appreciate most about looking back. We can be curious about our own history without turning every observation into a rule.

Maybe you remember always getting a stomachache after a certain meal.

Maybe you've never tolerated being hungry very well.

Maybe you were the child who needed quiet after school while everybody else wanted to play.

Maybe you loved drawing, gardening, singing, wandering through the woods, reading under a blanket or taking things apart to see how they worked.

None of those things has to mean anything.

But some of them might.

There are patterns we can recognize only after we've lived long enough to look backward.

I think that may be how I would change Dolly's quote now…

Remember who you are. And do it on purpose.

Not because the person you were at eight has all the answers for the person you are today.

But she might know a few things worth remembering.

Sixty-Second Self-Care

Ask someone who knew you “when” to tell you a story about yourself.

It might be someone who knew you as a child, in college, as a young parent, or during another part of your life that feels very far away now.

Then do the harder part.

Listen without correcting the story or explaining yourself.

Listen for the words they use to describe you.

What did they notice about you that you may have forgotten?

And what, if anything, would you like to remember?

Take care of you.

And, thanks, Dolly.