Would you be friends with your younger self? (a one-time link-up)

Me at 16

Me at 32

would you ever be friends with your younger self? trent asks me. he’s pulling out nachos and beer and i’m grabbing some chocolate and wine and we’re sitting on the sofa. it’s 9:30 pm. hangout time, which normally means Numbers or 24 or Parenthood, or maybe something like like Raising Hope or How I Met Your Mother.

friends with my younger self… i picture that girl, and i know my face is the same but my heart feels like it’s aged a thousand years, and my hands are looking more and more like my mother’s: worn for the loving.

i picture that girl in her Value Village clothes, in her bell-bottom jeans and her sixties’ hair and flowery shirts. i hear her laugh–it’s loud and uninhibited. she’s bold and tenacious and daring and … a bit fickle. but fun.

i pause. sip some wine. think about how 16-year-old me would be shocked at 32-year-old self drinking. i can feel her disappointment from here, and it hurts. because i’m the kind of person with high expectations for myself, and for others, and i don’t know if i could be friends with someone like that. someone i would regularly disappoint.

i think i could be her mentor, i tell trent. but she has a lot of growing up to do. i’m not sure i’d have the patience to be her friend.

he nods.

i’d totally be friends with myself, he says. i’d be like, hey, you’re cool, want to hang out? want to play some board games?

oh yeah, honey, that’s real cool, i say. and we’re laughing.

but it’s a sober kind of laugh, the kind that acknowledges how far we’ve come and yet, how long the road.

we lean into each other then.

and one thing hasn’t changed. the same guy makes my heart go wild, even after all these years.

***
so here’s the thing. i want to know if YOU would hang out with your younger self, and why/why not.

i’m  doing a one-time link-up, below. feel free to link up your posts all week, in answer to this question (and yes, we’ll still be doing imperfect prose on thursdays; the prompt for that is LIGHT).

you can also just answer in the comments!!!

love, e.

*linking with Heather, Laura, Michelle, Jen