I met my younger self for coffee today. She’s 28, I’m 44.
She was early but a bit nervous. I was late, which I hate, but I also felt bad leaving Charlotte. I’m not sure why, she’s perfectly happy and was having a whale of a time when I left. I just procrastinate!
We sat down and ordered some food, her so conscious of spending money, me glad to have someone else to cook!
We talked. She tells me she’s not sure what to do with her life. She’s recently moved back to London and wonders if she’s sold her soul to the corporate world. I tell her she probably has but I’m still working there, 17 years later. I tell her it was a good move to make, that I’ve had a great career there and made some wonderful friends. I tell her the company have been good to me and supported us in hard times. I tell her work is only a part of her story though and she doesn’t need to worry so much about it.
She tells me she’s trying to date and wants to meet someone, but online dating is pretty miserable. I tell her not to worry and to take a break and enjoy time with her friends. I tell her to have fun and reassure her that she’ll meet someone. Funnily enough, it will be through a dating site but that she’ll end up marrying him and that they’ll do so much together. I tell her he’s kind, a really good man, and that we’re still very happy together.
We chat about the future, about children. She tells me she wants kids but that she never says that out loud. Instead, she says, it’s easier to tell people she doesn’t want them to avoid their awkward, prying questions about her love life and plans for the future. I tell her it will come, in time. It will take a while, but it will be more that she could have ever imagined. I explain that we were robbed of the chance of having a bigger family, but that it’s ok, our girl is more than we need and fills our hearts every day. She smiles. I can see she can’t imagine that this will happen for her.
I tell her about the adventures she’s going to have. The places she’ll travel to. The people she’ll meet and the love that she’ll share. I tell her about how her nuclear family will grow, still small, but perfectly formed, strong and close. That they will always be the people she can lean on whatever storms are thrown at us. It’s the same with her friends. I tell her the girls she’s so close to now, will still be the ones all these years later. I tell her about the life that she builds and how happy she is. But then I tell her about some of the hard bits.
I tell her she’ll be tested in ways she didn’t know but that she will get through it. I tell her that her and her husband will go through tough times (and that we really get value out of those ‘in sickness and in health’ vows!). More tough times than seems fair, actually. She tells me life isn’t fair – she already knows that. I whisper the words ‘incurable cancer’ to her and she can’t believe it. She has questions – how, why? I can’t answer them. We both cry. Both of us scared at what’s to come. It doesn’t last long though. We’re both made of tough stuff and see that in each other. We steel ourselves and tell each other that whatever happens, it will be ok. I tell her there’s still happy times to be had. She tells me I will smile again, I just need to weather this storm. I know she’s right, and I also know that she’ll be ok. I can see it in her.
We get up to leave. We hug. We smile. We both know we won’t see each other again. It’s time for me to look forwards, not back. We tell each other we have hope, and to keep that alive.
I walk away, proud of the young woman I’ve just met, knowing where she’s going and who she’s going to become.
