I Met My Younger Self for Coffee Today – 53 years v 21 years.
I met my younger self for coffee today. I was early, I always am. She arrived just a few minutes after me. I smile as I realise, I have never changed. She is still wearing her nursing uniform and her cardigan; it’s standard wear for straight after the shift. She doesn’t wear much make up, something else that hasn’t changed much either. Me, I am sat in shorts and t shirt, my go-to uniform for the life I lead.
She sat down opposite me. I had my long black coffee. She had tea. She looked at me. There was quite a mix of emotions that this twenty-one-year-old was showing. Smiley and polite. Hopeful. A little terrified even. She also had a confidence that I don’t remember having. But there it was. Full bravado laid out in front of me.
‘Ok, you’re me, but older” she said, unsure whether she really believed what was happening to her. I nodded. “Yes. That’s right. Older, maybe a little wiser now. Tired all the time, you know how old people are!” That broke the nervousness. She laughed and smiled at me.
She leant towards me. “Right, lets do this. No point in asking what I do for a living is there? That is pretty obvious.” She gestured to her uniform as she spoke. “So, questions. Do I keep nursing? Is that my life? Do I win the lottery and never have to work again? Does Tom Cruise sweep me off my feet?”
I laughed. A deep laugh, coupled with a knowing smile. “You are nursing for some years yet my friend,” I said. “You do win a lottery prize, although nowhere near what you hope for, and Tom Cruise, he sadly didn’t know we were waiting for him!” She laughed with me. The same laugh. Her brows scrunched together in that same furrow I still make when I am confused. “Am I happy?” she asked me, a worried look on her face.
I sat back in my chair, as I knew what was coming. This made her lean forward. “What. What,” she said, with panic in her voice. I considered my answer as knowing what I know now, it is a complex response. “Don’t panic” I said. “You are happy, but you should remember you are going to have good and bad times, just like anyone in life.”
She leaned back, uncertain. “Do I fall in love?”
“Oh, yes, you most certainly do,” I whispered, my own heart aching with the memory of him. “Madly. Passionately. Deeply. Fiercely. It sounds cheesy but it is the kind of love that redefines all the others. The kind that makes you a braver and wiser person. You will feel alive.” I took a breath and continued, “it sounds cliché, but you are going to find your soulmate. One of your family members calls you, a right proper team.” He was right.
“And…?” she asked, sensing there was more. “You will lose him, he dies,” I said gently. There was no sugar coating that statement and being told now, might make her more prepared for later. The silence between us swelled. She looked like she wanted to run away. I remembered that feeling—the instinct to bolt when life threw a punch too heavy to absorb.
“But” I continued, “you survive. And you write. You grieve in ink, in articles, stories, and poems. And weirdly enough, people read them. They feel seen. You help them feel a little less alone.”
She blinked, overwhelmed. “How can I deal with that? I don’t think I am strong enough.”
“You’re not yet. But you become strong enough.”
She stared into her tea—because of course she had not graduated to coffee yet—and said, “What else should I know?”
“Oh, where to begin,” I said, smiling at her wide-eyed curiosity. “You stop caring what people think. Not all at once, but in beautiful little stages. One day, you will be asked a question, and you won’t worry about the answer. You won’t try to keep the peace, you will say what you believe to be right, even if much of the world thinks you’re wrong. There will be another day where you walk out of a toxic friendship and feel lighter instead of guilty.”
She looked intrigued. “Do we ever get skinny?” I burst out laughing, almost spitting my coffee at her. “We get comfortable. There is a big difference.”
She laughed, awkwardly, but I could see the relief wash over her. I had forgotten how much of my younger life had been shaped by mirrors and scales and the punishing feeling of not looking as good as I thought I should. She didn’t know yet that none of it mattered. Or rather, that it all mattered far too much and then… didn’t.
“Do we ever figure out what we want to do with our life?”
“Sometimes,” I replied. “Sometimes you do a thing you love and then circumstances change. Sometimes life picks for you. But the real truth? You will find your ‘something’ and in that, you will find meaning.”
She tapped her fingers against the cup, impatient. “Do I ever get a house? Travel? Have a kid? I grinned. “You get a house. You get a few over time, move around a bit. You travel. Not everywhere, but to places that matter. As for a kid, that’s complicated.”
She smiled at me. “Are we still funny?”
“Oh, we get funnier as we get older,” I assured her. “We develop sarcasm like it’s an art form. We stop trying to be universally liked. And we realise being laugh-out-loud funny, sometimes helps to heal more wounds than band-aids ever could.”
She looked at me for a long time, searching for cracks or clues. “Do we lose other people? Besides… him?”
“Yes,” I said, as I stared down at the table, my voice softer. “Mum. Others. And sometimes, you will lose people who are still alive—but who no longer fit into your story.”
Her eyes filled. “I don’t know how to do any of that. I cannot lose mum, I mean, I know I will at some stage in life, but parents…. being without them, the thought of it.”
“I know,” I said. “But you will cope. We have to in life. You will cry. You will scream into pillows. But you will also dance in the kitchen. You will find friends who feel like family. You will read books that touch your soul. You will keep going. Because that is what we do.”
She looked at me with my own sad eyes. “Sounds like us. Sounds like I have to grow up fast. Sounds like I deal with a lot in a short space of time.”
“Exactly.” I spoke. “But you cope.”
She hesitated, then reached across the table, hand trembling. I took it. Her skin was soft, unlined. Her grip, uncertain. Mine was firmer, steadier.
“Would you change anything?” she asked.
That one gave me pause.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Some days, yes. I would call people more. I would worry less. I wouldn’t have cut my own fringe that one time. But then again, every stumble taught us something. Every heartbreak shaped us. Every detour led us here. So maybe not.”
We sat for a while; our silence filled with years yet to unfold. She looked around, taking in the café, the other customers, the playlist humming softly in the background. Then, with a wry smile, she said, “You turned out okay.” “Thanks,” I said. “You gave me a good start.”
She stood, pulling her cardigan around her. “I’ve got to go. Life to live and all that.” “I know, me too,” I said, rising too. She looked me up and down and grinned as she turned to leave, hesitating just before the door. “Will I be proud of me?”
I nodded. “Eventually. In the best, quietest way.”
She smiled. And just like that, she was gone.
I returned to my table, now minus one ghost of girlhood, and finished my coffee. It had gone cold. But I didn’t mind.
Sometimes, a conversation is enough to warm you.
