Imagine sitting down for coffee with yourself at 25.
Not looking at an old photograph.
Not remembering who you were.
Actually sitting across from her.
I think about that sometimes.
Would she recognize me?
Would I recognize her?
Probably. Although I'm pretty sure we'd both have a few questions.
She might look at me and wonder how everything turned out.
Did I make the right choices?
Did I get where I thought I was going?
Did I ever figure it all out?
That one might make me laugh.
Because if I could tell my 25-year-old self one thing, it might be this:
You're going to spend way too much time thinking you're supposed to have it all figured out.
You don't.
And neither does everyone else.
I'd tell her she's going to make some great decisions.
She's also going to make some lousy ones.
There will be things she'll worry about for weeks that won't matter at all a few years later. And things she never saw coming that will change her.
I'd tell her to trust herself a little sooner.
Speak up when something doesn't feel right.
Stop worrying quite so much about what everyone else thinks.
And please — stop thinking being kind means you aren't tough.
That one I'd really want her to hear.
Because there will be times when people mistake kindness for weakness.
Let them.
One day she'll understand that she can have a soft heart and still be one strong woman.
I'd also tell her to enjoy more of it while it's happening.
The ordinary Tuesdays.
The people around the table.
The cup of coffee before the day gets crazy.
The moments she thinks aren't important enough to remember.
Turns out, some of those become the good stuff.
Would I warn her about the hard things?
I don't think I would.
Some things we have to live through to become who we're going to become.
Besides, I wouldn't want her spending all that time looking around the corner.
I'd rather tell her:
You're going to be okay. You're going to surprise yourself. And you're going to become a woman you couldn't possibly imagine yet.
Then I'd probably look across the table at that 25-year-old woman and realize something else.
I wouldn't want to change her very much.
Because every version of her had something to do with the woman sitting here now.
So maybe I wouldn't give her a long list of advice after all.
Maybe I'd just slide the coffee back toward her and say:
Trust yourself. Enjoy the ride. And don't make yourself smaller for anybody.
You've got a lot of living ahead of you.
And it's going to be quite a life.
If you could sit across from your 25-year-old self today, what would you tell her?
