I Met My Younger Self for Coffee Today

Cappuccino and alfajor in Buenos Aires, March 2024

We both arrived 5 minutes late. She ordered coffee with unsweetened almond milk and Splenda. I ordered a cappuccino, no sweetener.

She wore a business casual outfit from The Loft, with makeup on and her hair done. 

I wore running shoes and casual wear, sans makeup and with my hair in a ponytail, gray roots peeking out.

She smiles warmly and asks about future me.

I tell her we have two kids and I left my career so we could travel the world with them. Now we're living in Albania, at least for the time being. We don't know how long we'll be here or what's next.  

She asks where that even is and tells me she could never give up her career because it’s important that she make something of herself, though she does love the idea of going abroad again but has no idea how. 

She compares herself to her friends and wants to be able to buy a house and probably have a family, but she also longs to travel internationally. Everything on the West Coast is so expensive. How to achieve it all? It seems impossible. 

I tell her she moved to Colorado, where things were more affordable (at the time), earned a master's degree while pregnant, and pivoted into a successful career that she worked hard for and got a lot of satisfaction from. It ultimately took her to Seattle and into the tech world.

She says that sounds ideal, so why give it up? 

I tell her there was a global pandemic that changed the world and in that same year both her in-laws passed away. She and her husband reevaluated what they wanted out of life and they desired to see more of the world and show it to their kids while they were all healthy and able to enjoy it. She tried to get an international assignment but it didn't work out, so they did it a different way. 

She asks if it was scary to deviate from a stable, comfortable life and how I managed to do it? 

I tell her it took tremendous courage and required making tradeoffs, some that I still wrestle with, but that I would've always wondered if I had never tried and I didn't want to live with that regret. 

She says it must be nice to have gotten clarity about what to pursue in life. 

I laugh out loud, nearly spitting my coffee out, and tell her she doesn’t have any more clarity about what’s next in her life than she did back when she was younger. 

How do you live with the uncertainty, she asks? 

I tell her it isn't easy, that some mornings I wake up with a knot of anxiety in my chest, but I trust that the next part of the path will appear as I move forward, even if it continues to take unexpected twists and turns. 

She says that sounds like a leap too far; she needs consistency and predictability to ground her. She wants a normal life with occasional adventures to keep it interesting, not a complete deviation. She checks the time and says she has a meeting to get to. As she stands up, she asks if maybe we can have coffee again at some point. She'd like to hear how things unfold.

I tell her absolutely and that I'm curious, too. I hope she learns to let go and to believe that she can find success on her own terms, even if it doesn't look like what other people have or make sense to them. It will require a shift in perspective, some trial and error, and definitely lots of courage to push through the self-doubt. I look forward to our next coffee date.