The “I Met My Younger Self for Coffee” trend offers a reflective and emotional approach to storytelling. It involves imagining a conversation with your younger self, offering wisdom, comfort, and reassurance from the perspective of who you are now.
Why I Wrote This Post…
I first discovered this trend on Instagram and instantly knew what I’d tell my younger self. I’ve always low-key used this blog, along with IG, to give some sort of silent encouragement to women who are in my shoes: women who are in their 30s, single, and without kids. I wanted to set the example that you can absolutely have a fulfilling life when your timeline doesn’t match everybody else’s, but I never really felt I had the platform to say it on until now. Thank you to Jennae Cecelia (@jennaececelia on IG), who started this trend.
If your timeline mirrors mine at all, I hope you know that having peace in your life comes from trusting your own timing, and what you do with the time you’re given. I hope you use this time to find what it is that YOU love.
Lastly, here’s to 25-year-old Gina. Thank you for never settling, and for being brave enough to trust yourself. I hope you know we tried really, really hard to get here. 🥂
“I Met My Younger Self for Coffee”
We were both late. Her 5 minutes, me 10.
Some things never change.
She was 25, I was 35.
She chose a cafe along the beach. I walked in, pausing to smell the salt from the ocean and listen to the waves crash against the shore. It had been years since I was in South Carolina.
She sat in a booth along the wall, her tan skin acknowledging that she was now indeed a local. It had always been what she wanted: to run away and live somewhere in the South. Her smile immediately told me she was proud of herself…that this was the bravest, most authentic thing she’s done so far.
Yes…so far.
South Carolina wouldn’t become her forever home…but she would never regret her decision to build a life here, even if only for a little while.
May 2013
I looked at her, remembering how emancipated I felt when I left home. How good it felt to bet on myself…knowing that even if it didn’t work out, I never had to live a life where I sat and wondered “what if.” That alone was enough to take the risk.
She glanced up at me, her eyes laced with curiosity.
“Hey,” she says softly.
She ordered a mocha latte. I ordered a plain latte with cinnamon and oat milk.
One day, she’d come to dislike her coffee too sweet.
She had just chopped all her hair off – the telltale sign of a woman who has been liberated. It was short on one side above her ear, longer on the other, and freshly bleached blonde. A bold move, but she pulled it off.
She wore a bright sundress with brown cowboy boots. I wore a black bodysuit, black shorts, and heels.
I gestured to her boots, knowing she always wore them as a subtle nod to her home state. Ironically, no one really wears cowboy boots in West Virginia on a daily basis, but nevertheless, they reminded her of home. More specifically, they reminded her of the people who felt like home.
“You’ll have silver sparkly ones someday,” I told her. “They’ll be your favorite.”
“I’m glad we don’t outgrow sparkles,” she said.
“Never.” I winked. “Your hair looks good.”
“Thanks,” she said, then grinned and admitted, “I hear that a lot. I did it because I was sick of looking like everybody else. I mean…no offense.” She took a drink and gestured to my long, blonde curls.
“None taken,” I smiled.
Nashville, Tennessee
Finally, it happened.
She looked down at my left hand, which was bare, like hers.
She held her gaze there for a moment, and then glanced up at me slowly.
“Still?” she asked. Her voice was almost a whisper.
I nodded.
“Divorced?” she asked.
“No.” I said. “Never married.”
For a moment, she looked like she didn’t know what to do. I could tell she wanted to offer me sympathy, but there was a confidence in my answer that stopped her.
Before she could say anything, I said, “Do you want to get married?”
“Yes,” she said. “But I’m scared.”
“Of what?” I asked, even though I already knew. But I wanted her to say it out loud.
She took a deep breath.
“I’m scared because I’m not happy,” she said. “I hate my job. 13 hour days with no breaks wear you down after awhile. Every day I wake up feeling so unfulfilled. I’m a naturally creative person, and I’ve chosen a path that doesn’t let me express that at all. And now I’m stuck because I can’t go back.”
She blinks back tears.
I waited.
“I feel like I put in so much work to do ‘what I was supposed to do,’ and none of it feels right. I don’t think it EVER felt right though…even when I was going through it. I always had this sense of I-don’t-belong-here. And it’s my own fault. I didn’t fight for what I wanted. I didn’t know how to fight for what I wanted. I wasn’t brave enough to take any sort of risks or trust my own abilities and talents. And now I feel like I wasted my potential.”
I patiently listened, and nodded.
She continued, “The most important thing to me is to create a life I love for myself before I decide to share it with somebody else. Because that way, I know I’ll be happy regardless if there’s a man in my life or not. But I don’t know what that life would even look like now.”
I couldn’t wait to tell her, but I let her keep going.
“Do you ever feel lonely?” she asked me after a moment.
“Sometimes,” I said. “But you can also feel lonely in a relationship.”
She nodded in agreement, and I paused, knowing we learned this the hard way.
“You have the most incredible friends,” I told her. “Old and new. In fact, 3 of your closest friends you haven’t even met yet. But your friends are a lot of the reason you don’t feel lonely often.”
She smiled. Our friendships always saved us. Even now, they were still saving me.
She was silent for a moment…and then asked,
“Do we ever find it? The life we love for ourselves, I mean.”
So I told her.
I told her about the places we’ve gone, the foods we’ve tried, and the people we’ve met. I told her about the buildings, churches, and palaces we’ve toured.
I told her how we danced with strangers in hidden bars in Spain. I told her how we stayed out all night with new friends we met in Italy despite having to leave early the next day.
I told her about our first trip to Greece. I told her about the Christmas markets in Germany and which ones were our favorite.
I told her about the boys we kissed that we’d never see again.
Her eyes widened.
“And I do this…on my own?” she said. Her tone was one of excitement, not fear. After all, she had moved to South Carolina on her own too.
Santorini, Greece
“Yep,” I replied. “On your own. But wait, it gets better. You also become a writer, just like you always wanted. You write for a company, and you also create your own travel website to help people do what you’re doing.”
Her jaw dropped.
“Do we have kids?” she asked.
“No kids,” I said. “But most of your friends do, and they all have girls. So you have a lot of ‘nieces,’ a couple ‘nephews,’ and you even have two goddaughters! You don’t know their mom yet, but she’ll become one of your best friends. You’ll have a lot of stories to tell all of them when they’re older.”
She smiled. “I can’t wait.”
Positano, Italy
I could tell she was getting excited, so I held up my hand to stop her.
“Wait. There’s something else you need to know,” I said.
She looked at me, her excitement instantly fading. She loved surprises, but not this kind.
Part of me wondered if I shouldn’t tell her…if I should leave her with her newly curated optimism and just let her be happy for as long as it lasts. But I thought back to that time in my life…those years when I was convinced my decisions had ruined any chance I had at being happy…and I knew I would have given anything to know that I was wrong. That maybe, just maybe, if I knew what my life would become, it would have been easier to get through it.
I looked her in the eye.
“You need to know this is going to get worse before it gets better,” I said. “That life will test your faith in ways you never imagined. Your late 20’s will be hard, but they become part of your story, too. You just can’t let the hard days win.”
Barcelona, Spain
She looked at me for a moment, unsure of what to say, then looked outside at the raindrops beginning to land on the window from the incoming storm.
One day, she’d understand why they name storms after people.
“Your 20s are supposed to be the best years of your life,” she finally said.
“I know,” I replied, still feeling the sting of the what if…the feeling that if I would have done something differently back then, I could have avoided so much regret. I could have made peace with myself in my 20s instead of my 30s. But that wasn’t God’s plan for our life.
“If there’s one thing I can tell you,” I said, “it’s that nothing in our life happens ‘on time’ or ‘the way it’s supposed to’ or anything like that. You will question God’s timing a lot. I still find myself doing it. And I can’t explain it or do anything about it other than to just keep going. I’d rather things happen ‘late’ for us than not happen at all.” I paused. “So you have to promise me you’ll keep going.”
She nodded in agreement.
“How will we know when we meet The One?” she asks.
She always worried about that. But I was ready for this question.
“We’ll know because we’ll fall in love with our freedom,” I replied. “Right now, I’m in love with the freedom I have to wake up and book a flight across the world tomorrow. I’m in love with the freedom to have ice cream for dinner. The freedom to talk to random strangers…to stay out til 5:00 am…to do nothing and everything. The freedom to do whatever I want.”
Her eyes lit up the moment I said “freedom.” Freedom was the one thing her 20s gave her, and, in some ways, also took from her. She would need to fall in love with her freedom before she fell in love with a man.
“We’ll know we’ve met The One when he makes us want to give that freedom up,” I continued. “Because we love him more than we love our freedom. And giving up our freedom won’t mean giving up our life, even if his life doesn’t exactly parallel ours.”
She listened intently.
Sedona, Arizona
“If we do meet someone,” I told her, “our freedom will turn out to be nothing more than a love affair. It will be the greatest love affair we’ll have…the greatest story we’ll ever tell, because it will lead us to our person. Until then, we’ll be the love of our own life. Sometimes YOU have to be ‘The One’ until ‘The One’ comes along.”
She nodded, fully understanding.
“I hope you meet him soon,” she said. “I’m glad you feel like you can finally fall in love without fear.”
I smiled, twirling my spoon in what was left of my latte. “I’ve learned not to mind the fall,” I said. “In fact, I think falling has always felt like flying to me.”
I didn’t quite know if my double meaning registered with her…but I had a feeling it did.
We got up to leave.
“Promise me one thing,” I told her. “Promise me you’ll hold out for what you really want. For WHO you really want. No matter how many people tell you you’re getting older or he doesn’t exist.”
“Promise,” she said.
I hugged her, knowing she keeps her promise.
