Member-only story
I Met My Younger Self Recently
But she doesn’t know that.
A few weeks ago, a friend of my husband’s came to visit us for the weekend — a young man he worked with some years back, and stayed in touch with but hadn’t seen in a while. The friend brought along the woman he’s been dating for a year or two, whom neither of us had met.
She was charming, and quiet. She’s a dozen years younger than her boyfriend: in her early twenties. I know this because she told us so within a few minutes of their arrival, kind of self-consciously. As though we’d been wondering.
(I hadn’t been, actually. Kids these days, you know; they all look so young.) :-)
We had a really nice weekend. My husband and his friend got a sorely needed chance to catch up. We got to cook for appreciative, omnivorous appetites. And…I got to meet my younger self.
It took me a while to realize that’s who she was. Oh, not literally, of course; I was never so pierced and culturally engaged and au courant in my life. When I was her age, I was just meeting a wealthy businessman who wowed me by taking me to Las Vegas and the Napa Valley and the Hotel del Coronado (and buying me nice dresses to wear in those places). These two young people live an entirely different life.
