I was You once

I met my 24-year-old-self for coffee

Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

The day I meet my younger self for coffee, she is five minutes early.

I spy her through the window, anxiously twisting the ring on her middle finger, wondering if I’ve stood her up. She orders a honey cinnamon latte, and takes a moment to admire the latte art before she sips at her back corner table beside the window, facing the door.

I order a spicy chai and wander over to her, my tattooed arm exposed by the sleeveless black tank top I wear; a sliver of midriff showing slightly above my high waisted linen pants. Her eye roam over me in a kind of shock, and my eyes do the same as I realize she has squeezed herself into her pre-first-baby jeans to make a good impression on me. I almost demand she change immediately into the pair of overall shorts I keep in the back of my truck for farm work days, but then I remember—that’s not what this meeting is about. And neither self-acceptance nor change happen overnight.

Her eyes are round on me as she says, “hi!”, in that over-bright voice she’s curated for the pleasure of others.

I give her a rye smile and say, “hey you.” I pull back my chair softly, careful not to scrape the legs on the floor, and she lets go of the brace she’s been holding in her shoulders in anticipation of the sound. We sit across from each other in an almost awkward silence for a beat, taking each other in.

“Thank you for meeting me," she says. “I have so many things I want to ask you.”

“Ask away,” I say with a flourish of my hand, taking a large sip from my dirty chai.

“So…you’re me in ten years?”

“Just about,” I say, “I’m about to turn 34.”

“I couldn’t help but notice your tattoos. How many do we have now?”

“Three…but that’s only because my plans for them are so dang expensive.” She nods at this.

“Kids?”

“Five,” I say, laughing.

“HOLY CRAP,” she says, her eyes round as saucers. “I’m drowning with one!”

“Don’t worry,” I say, “you’ll figure it out.” She gives me a little smile at this.

“Are we still in ministry?” She asks. “Did we plant a church?”

“Ummmm….” I say, hesitating. “Not the way you are thinking no, but we have created a place that is a sanctuary for a lot of people.” She looks almost startled at this, but nods as though she understands.

“How many book deals have we gotten?”

“Zero.” I say, “but that’s the wrong question.” She looks terribly confused. “You should be asking, how many books have we published.”

Her eyes brighten a bit. “How many books have we published?”

“Three,” I say, “Two books of poetry, and a romcom novella.”

“We write FICTION??” She looks aghast, but I can see a spark of secret delight in her eyes.

“Yes,” I say, “we most certainly do.”

“But I always thought there were too many true stories to tell to bother with creating fake ones.”

“There will always be the true stories,” I reply, “but just because a story is fictional does not make it un-true.”

“Madeline L’Engle said something to that effect didn’t she.”

“Yes, she did.”

“And people actually want to read our poetry?”

“As it turns out, a lot of people need poetry to heal. And not everyone can write poetry. So we write poems that help name the aches of life for both ourselves and others, so that we can move towards greater wholeness. It’s not for everyone of course, but for some people, it’s exactly what they need.” Her eyes sparkle a bit at that with unshed tears that she can’t explain even to herself.

We spend awhile talking about my various books and projects—and though she startles a bit when I tell her that my most recent poetry project came from the angst of me coming out as bisexual and processing through the harm caused to me and so many others by church-sponsored misogyny and patriarchy—she listens attentively, and swallows her fear with sips of cinnamon latte.

I can see the war in her eyes; the desire to be open hearted and understanding, and the terrible fear that she will lose everything if she is. She’s not wrong. In many ways, she does lose (almost) everything that is important to her right now. And she can’t yet conceive of what she has to gain.

So I try to keep it simple, and I accept the fact that she’ll panic pray for me in the car before she pulls out of the parking lot of this coffee shop—knowing that the God we both still believe in has already answered her prayers for my liberation.

After a few minutes, she steers us to a safer subject.

“So you’re an author…and a farmer now?” She asks, almost incredulously. I can’t help but laugh.

“Yes. Remember that farmer at the Brookfield market last year? The one who sold us the “non-woody asparagus?”

She nods. “She’d picked it just that morning.”

“Now, every Saturday, that’s US.” She cannot conceal her grin then.

“But all my seed starts died!”

“Again,” I say, “you’ll figure it out. You just have to learn the right combination of dirt, and sun, and time.”

She looks out the window thoughtfully, tears rising in her eyes. “You’re different than I expected,” she says.

“In what way?” I ask, even though I’m pretty sure I know the answer.

“You seem like…” she trails off, “like you know what you’re doing.” The tears are tracking down her face now, “You live with more uncertainty than I can stomach, and yet…” she trailed off, “you seem so…confident.”

I reach my hand across the table and grab a hold of hers. “I might not know everything,” I say slowly, “but I’ve stopped running from who I am. I’ve stopped sacrificing everything shred of happiness, thinking that makes me holy. I’ve learned to be myself, and to just be. It takes a long time to unravel those threads of all the things our life told us we were “supposed,” to be—I’m still working through it. But I know WHO I am, and WHOSE I am now—and that’s enough.”

I wipe her tears with my calloused fingers, holding her face in my hands for a moment before she squirrels her raw vulnerability back behind the smiling veneer of a woman who thinks she has to be “just so,” to be loved. Her eyes dart to the clock above my shoulder.

“I’d better get going,” she says, pulling away. “I have a meeting at the church tonight.”

“Yeah,” I say, my heart like a stone in my throat. Somehow, I’d been hoping for more time. She rises to leave and pushes in her chair softly, pulling at her uncomfortable jeans and grabbing her purse from the chair beside her. As she meets my eyes one final time I blurt out, “I love you, you know.”

She freezes, purse halfway up her arm, “you do?” she says, almost in a whisper.

“Yes,” I say, smiling, tears in my eyes now too.

“I love you too,” she replies as she turns to go, but she can’t meet my gaze.

I know in my heart that only one of us told the truth just know—but that’s okay.

There’s still time.

---

This little essay was inspired by that social media trend “I met my younger self for coffee” of all things, and it was an oddly cathartic exercise for me to extend grace to the version of myself I used to be. I think it’s pretty easy to judge our past selves, but what we really need for healing and wholeness is a healthy dose of self-compassion. The me I was ten years ago was so horribly afraid—and she deserves my understanding, not my judgment, even though I wish often that she’d done things differently.

I hope that you can extend this same grace to previous versions of yourself, and to yourself in this very moment right now, especially if you find yourself afraid.

You will find your courage, dear one. I just know it.

xoxo

Gracie

p.s. If you haven’t gotten your hands on a copy of the books I mention here, you can get both my poetry books at most major online retailers, some local shops in Colorado, or at my website here. Even as my books are exceedingly healing for me to write, my readers tell me they are very healing to read. Just check out my Amazon reviews if you don’t believe me.

Or, if you’ve already read those and just need a cozy little escapist read, check out my cute little romcom novella Just Drive in ebook and on KU. It’ll remind you that maybe your greatest struggles are also your greatest gifts.