Every June, I would give my eighth-graders two final assignments. I neither read nor graded the first one; while I read the second, I only wrote positive feedback on it.

For the first assignment, I asked my 13- and 14-year-old students to write a letter to themselves. I then placed each letter -- with notes the students gathered from friends, pictures they selected, money they earned, and other mementos -- into a large manila envelope; four years later, when my eighth-graders prepared to graduate from high school, I mailed their letters to them

The second assignment focused on the past. After reading to my students sections of Robert Fulghum's "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten," I asked my students to write a list of five to 10 things they had learned early in life and why those lessons still had value for them as teenagers.

Although I retired from middle school teaching in June 2003, those years in the classroom have stayed with me. Therefore, in preparation for my 62nd birthday in August, I have not only acquired a primary care physician who specializes in geriatrics, contacted Social Security to arrange for my benefits, and accepted the gray hairs that seem to grow overnight, but I have also decided to practice what I preached: I am busy writing a letter to myself that I will read when I turn 75 (ever the cockeyed optimist) and reminiscing about the lessons of my youth.

While the contents of my letter are of no interest to anyone but me, I believe that the lessons I have learned may have more universal appeal -- at least to those people who, like me, perceive life as a challenging process that often involves three steps forward and five steps backward.

1. Crayons may resemble miniature Popsicles in their shapes and colors, but they lack the sweetness of the sugary treat. As a 5-year-old, I did not understand that appearances can be deceiving, but I quickly learned that behind an ornate facade can stand a dilapidated building and behind a welcoming smile can lurk a scheming back-stabber.

That fifth year also taught me that the opposite can hold true when my parents set before me a huge box for my birthday. I spent many excited minutes unwrapping boxes -- each box becoming smaller and smaller so it could fit in the one before it -- until I reached the final tiny box covered with plain brown paper. Inside that unassuming package lay my first real watch.

2. The formidable undertow of the Atlantic Ocean may pull me under, but my father will always be there to rescue me. Other 6-year-olds may dream of Prince Charming, a character from one of their favorite fairy tales, but I have always had my dad -- the man who saved me from the angry ocean, confronted my fourth-grade music teacher when she embarrassed me by making me sing a solo (my voice creates chills in the dead), comforted me after the eighth-graders "welcomed" me to junior high by rolling me in a barrel, and helped me pick up the pieces of a broken marriage to build a life for my children and me.

3. Once scissors cut a doll's hair, the hair will not grow back. During a home-made science experiment, my older brother took the silver scissors our mother kept in the kitchen drawer and used them to chop off the blond locks of my favorite doll. I tried to re-attach the curls with glue, tape, staples, paper clips, rubber bands and Band-Aids, but the doll kept her short, uneven bob until I sold her years later at a garage sale. Life does not always offer second chances, and bad choices -- even when done in the name of science -- cannot always be repaired.

4. No matter how many hours I spend with my index fingers pressed into both sides of my face, I will never have Shirley Temple dimples. Accepting who I am -- the tall girl with the long face and not-so-straight teeth (I still have trouble using the word "crooked") -- has never been easy for me. I may have control over my hairstyle, my choice of clothes and my attitude, but, in the words of Popeye, that famous sailor man, "I yam what I yam."

5. Love does mean having to say you're sorry. I have spent years apologizing for wrongdoings both small and large: to my brother for blaming him for the missing Toll House cookies I had eaten; to my mother for never emptying my pockets of Kleenex before adding my pants to the hamper; to my grandmother for teasing her about her gradual loss of hearing; to my daughter for "accidentally" reading pages of her diary; to my son for waking up all his friends and their parents when, 10 minutes after curfew, he still had not arrived home. Yet, I have also learned that love means forgiveness.

The beauty of my lesson list is that it has no ending. With every play I see, every book I read, and every friend I make, I continue to learn more.

And whenever I find myself losing my way, I turn to my tattered copy of Fulghum's book to regain my balance. After all, I can't go wrong by playing fair, cleaning up any mess I make, washing my hands before eating and after flushing, finding time in even the busiest of days for a nap, and, most of all, seeing the world with wonder.