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Having mentors is important, and it's also getting a lot of attention online (particularly on social media). I've been very blessed in the mentors I've had, and I also have the privilege of being a mentor to a group of high school and junior high girls. Here's a list of the different kinds of mentors I've had (and/or been), all of which contribute to a well-rounded life that grows and encourages growth in others. Without further ado...

The Ancestors

These are mentors who are not directly involved in your life. Whether that means that you are reading books they wrote or remembering the lessons they taught you when you were a child sitting on their lap, these mentors have passed away and their wisdom is alive through you and your willingness to seek it out. This kind of mentor is one of the most useful for seeing the weaknesses in your own culture/micro-culture, since Ancestor mentors tend to be from a different time and place. Use them! Love them! Become a reader of old books and glean all you can. Read family diaries. Become an expert in the past that created the present. The future feels more manageable when you understand the trajectory of history. 

Mount Olympus Mentor

At this level, the mentors are still alive, but they are 100% out of reach (or, their accomplishments are). In my case, there are a lot of living authors that fall into this category, as well as artists, musicians, etc. They are almost legendary, can be somewhat problematic, and are still super important to developing as a person because you have to have a target that will always make you stretch. Looking up to those way above your level is good, as long as you remember that all your faves are still actually people. It's okay to have heroes and to really look up to them, to feel like they're out of your league, and work in a hundred little ways to become more like them. For budding actors, this may be a multi-Oscar winner; for scientists, a great mind that's made unimaginable breakthroughs. Seek out the work of someone way out of your league and find the way up the mountain. 

The Jedi Mentor

This is the first mentor level that's directly involved in your life. The idea is that the Jedi Master is trying to create their own replacement because there is a job to be done, and the Jedi Apprentice is trying to be ready for the day they become the Master. While it's normal that the Jedi mentor becomes a close personal friend to the apprentice, that's not where things start. You (the apprentice) are dedicated to a cause or a skill set that the mentor (your master) is great at. The goal in everyone's mind is to have the apprentice someday go beyond the mentor, whether that means becoming a genuinely better _____ than your mentor, or just continuing the fight after they are gone; as mastery is achieved, the lines of mentor and mentee blur and both become equals. The Jedi mentor might be a boss, a thesis mentor, a professor or teacher, (in theatre) a director, or a pastor (I've had Jedi mentors who also held all of these jobs, by the way). I wrote a post at the passing of one of these kinds of mentors, which you can read here. 

Parental Guidance

Whether these are your biological parents or people who you feel you can treat as parental figures, this level of mentorship is really, for the first time, about you. They are invested not in what you will be or how much money you will make or your contributions to the field-- they are invested in you becoming the person you were made to be. They care who you are on the weekends, and about your well-being and personal fulfillment. They're also older, to the point that they will always be ahead in life (usually a gap of 20 years or so). 

The Mentor Next Door

This mentor is above you, but not by much. They are in the next stage of life (in high school/graduating college, student/alumni, entry-level/manager, newlyweds/parents, single/married: the list of possible stages is endless). Whatever you want to be doing next, this mentor is doing. You get to watch the stumbles and the mistakes, and they get to be aware that they are being watched and have a smaller margin for utter stupidity. This role also evaporates as time goes on, because it is very possible to graduate to the point that the Mentor Next Door is just a friend who's a few years older and wiser (this has happened for me with many worship leaders I admire, because the differences in our progress has shrunk over time). Right now, I am currently a Mentor Next Door to some high school students. Someday -- if all goes well -- they won't need me in that role any more.

Sister Mentor

Perhaps my favorite type of mentor to be, and certainly the one I most wish I had when I was younger. This is the person who is both a mentor and able to rely on the mentee, in a way that isn't possible in a Mentor Next Door relationship. While the Mentor Next Door can talk about their weaknesses, the Sister Mentor shows them, in the moment. The mentee is able to grow through the relationship, since the Mentor is calling them up to offer genuine support, and the Mentor practices vulnerability. Two people are growing up; one of them is moving faster. There's a chasing and a catching-up and a level of trust that is hard to come by. This kind of relationship is possible with both relatives and non-relatives, but it is a long-lasting, deeply personal relationship that is worth treasuring, and pursuing, and showing extreme gratitude for. 

(Note: Brother Mentors follow all the same rules, but I am not anyone's brother). 

Baby You

And the closest, most intimate mentor: the child version of yourself. If You from the Past met you today, would they be impressed? Would they be proud? Would they want to grow up to be like you? Would you find yourself someone worth following? Did You From the Past need someone just like You From the Present?  Our child-selves live on in us whether we want them or not. This is where they shine: in reminding us what we wanted to be and who we wanted to be. It's possible You from the Past was immature, selfish, troubled, and vice-ridden (not like You From the Present, I'm sure), but would Past You find your current self convicting? When your younger self speaks fear, do you listen with empathy and respond as though caring for a child you love? If not, find a way to take care of the child inside by becoming the grown-up you needed. This is the mentor that will not let you forget who you were made to be. Listen in. Baby You still has something to say.

One thing I did not expect about my twenties is how many times I would have to break up with versions of myself. The fantasies of the future that are only possible to paint on the walls of Plato's cave, that evaporate when the light shifts, keep dissolving. From what I understand, this process is not going to stop any time soon.  

 For example, I went through a terrible and painful breakup over the last year or so, regarding biological family. Despite being raised as far away from them as possible without requiring a passport to visit, and despite my parents’ intense and intentional efforts to raise me in ways antithetical to their own childhoods and (in many ways) polarized from their siblings’ decisions, I somehow entertained the fantasy that I had a self that got on swimmingly with this group of people I share genetic predispositions with. Unfortunately, along with a tendency toward shoulder injuries, addiction, and a youthful appearance that I am told will serve me well in twenty years, I share an inability to sit on my hands when things seem not-right. Not even necessarily unjust or fundamentally wrong in some cosmic sense, but plain old “not-right.” And somehow, this fantasy survived until I turned 22, the day that President Donald Trump was announced President-Elect of the United States of America. That was the day my self and the self I imagined began to burn at each other, lighting little fires in the forest to see which one was composed of only smoke. The family-self I had so carefully sustained evaporated. I am left with a bloodline, and Facebook posts. 

It was fourteen months later that I discovered that someone I loved deeply was (in a cosmic, not biological sense) my literal sister, and everyone who’s ever met both of us threw shoes of affection at our heads (mostly mine).

 And then there’s the artist I imagined I would be, or would not be. For someone so fiercely dedicated to writing everything all the time, it took me a long time to put two and two together, that if there is no leaving this thing behind, I should perhaps not only bring it along, but let it lead. Instead, I nursed the fantasy of being some kind of actor that, when the fantasy was enacted, would begin to eat away at my soul. The last several months have involved me breaking out my matchbook, lighting candles and praying prayers that I would learn to put the damn cup down, since clearly, God is not the one asking me to drink it. Thankfully, he’s the kind of Good Father who will smack your little hands if you keep it up with the poison. But that’s a goodbye so painful and tender that I don’t know what will replace it. What I do know is that I still love writing, especially when I do it all the time, and acting can feel like salt in the wound.

As a writer, of course, you want to write serious things, and when I try, my sense of humor comes through (so I am told) and my narrators seem to be very tongue-in-cheek, licking the teeth with cavities to see if they still hurt. That particular self doesn’t feel so uncomfortable, because I am growing into something different than I expected, but at least I know what forest I'm in. In literary terms, I might be less like Tolkien's elves and more like Keebler's. 

 The dust of the woman I thought I would be sticks to my fingers, not because I cannot live up to my expectations, but because I have surpassed them in ways I didn't know were possible. And there are moments, especially during this period of my life where I am single and independent (and, on occasion, speechlessly lonely), that I wonder if perhaps her voice to be someone I am not and have never been, would perhaps make dating easier, more likely. There's something about being high-functioning, high-achieving, and constantly balancing on a mental high wire that I have nicknamed "stable" that just feels less-than-appealing. Also, I just don't like so many of the things that seem to mark womanhood, no matter how arbitrary. 

And yet, the reason there is dust and not her in my hands is because I was never going to be the person I thought. I was never going to stop the balancing act; there is no version of me that learned to knit. And its in the moments of tension that the wire is safest, when I accept the push and pull that is existing, and stop asking the potter why and start allowing for fullness, breathing in, breathing out, watching fires die just in time for the sun to come up.