On nostalgia, missed opportunities, and the strange business of growing older.

But I remember being that age. Sometimes I wished I could experience it again. Just for a little while.

I caught him staring.

That boy with the wavy, light brown hair whom I’d noticed a couple of months earlier.

We were at a college camp, and somehow, amidst all the activities and unfamiliar faces, he’d been looking my way.

Naturally, I panicked.

Don’t smile so widely!

I had recently undergone tooth extractions for braces, which meant there were rather conspicuous gaps in my teeth.

Not exactly the look I was going for.

He can see the gaps. He’ll think I look ridiculous. He probably won’t like a girl with missing teeth.

So I closed my mouth.

And, in many ways, I suppose I did the same with my heart.

To people. To experiences. To the possibility that something wonderful might happen if I simply allowed myself to be seen.

A little dramatic?

Perhaps.

But that’s how it felt.

The Peculiar Business of Being Twenty-One

When I was twenty-one, I probably spent half my time worrying about things that don’t even matter to me now.

I wanted to do more.

Go to more events. Meet more people. Date more. Explore more.

There was a whole world waiting for me, and I knew it.

The problem was that I seemed to be waiting for something too.

Confidence, perhaps. The right circumstances. Some magical future version of myself who would finally stop overthinking everything.

She was taking an awfully long time to arrive.

And besides, I thought I had time.

So much time.

Why rush into anything when there were years and years ahead of me?

That’s one of the peculiar illusions of youth, isn’t it? Tomorrow feels impossibly far away, while the present seems so abundant that you can afford to waste little pieces of it.

Until, one day, those little pieces become memories.

Of course there are parts of it you wish had lasted longer.

The Things I Remember

When I think about my university years, I don’t necessarily remember the grand occasions first.

I remember the tea and cheese-sauce popcorn chicken I brought to class.

The walks in the rain, chatting with friends about the release of Twilight.

The trees swaying outside the college building whenever a storm rolled in.

The sound of rain outside my bedroom window as I sat at my desk, typing up an assignment.

There seems to be a lot of rain in these memories.

Apparently, my university years were sponsored by the weather.

I remember the walk from the train station to school, my colourful laptop bag, the meals with friends, and the frantic last-minute assignments.

I remember looking for an empty project meeting room where we could hide away and work.

The clacking of a friend’s long fingernails against her laptop keyboard.

The laughter on benches.

Nothing particularly extraordinary.

And yet, years later, these are the things that return to me.

Not the grades. Not the assignments themselves. Not even the things I was so terribly worried about at the time.

Just little fragments of being alive.

Of course, not every memory is quite so lovely.

I remember feeling awkward at parties. Being painfully conscious of how I sounded, how I looked, whether I was interesting enough.

There were days when I felt I didn’t quite belong anywhere.

But did I really not belong?

Or had I simply convinced myself that I didn’t?

It’s an uncomfortable question.

Because sometimes I wonder how much of my younger life I spent experiencing things, and how much of it I spent observing myself experiencing them.

Was I funny enough? Was I saying the right thing? Did I look awkward?

Goodness.

What an exhausting person to have living inside your head.

And sometimes I think that’s what I regret most. Not necessarily the opportunities I missed, but that I didn’t always recognise how wonderful ordinary life could be while I was living it.

If I Had a Time Machine

I occasionally entertain the idea of going back.

Not permanently, of course.

Just for a little while.

Perhaps I’d revisit one of those rainy afternoons, sit beside my friends, and listen to their conversations without worrying about whether I had anything sufficiently interesting to contribute.

I’d smile at that boy at college camp.

Gaps and all.

I’d attend more events without deciding beforehand whether I’d fit in.

I’d pay more attention during classes instead of treating them as something to get through.

And perhaps I’d tell my younger self that she didn’t have to be particularly impressive to deserve a good time.

Would she listen?

Probably not.

Twenty-one-year-olds have a remarkable capacity to believe that their current anxieties are of historic importance.

I certainly did.

But I think I’d like her to know that most of the things she feared would eventually become rather insignificant.

And that the things she took for granted might become the very things she missed.

Missing a Version of Myself

And sometimes I miss who I was then. Not because I dislike who I am now. I just miss being her.

I miss the innocence of not quite knowing what lay ahead.

That feeling of standing on the cusp of something, with so many possible lives stretching out before you.

The nervousness. The excitement. The uncertainty.

The peculiar thrill of meeting someone new and wondering what might happen next.

Even dating at twenty and dating at forty feel like entirely different experiences.

You know what I mean?

There’s something about youthful innocence that cannot be recreated exactly. Once you’ve lived through enough experiences, you begin to recognise patterns. You know a little more about people. About disappointment. About yourself.

And there’s beauty in that knowledge.

But there’s also something tender about remembering a younger version of yourself who didn’t know any of it yet.

I don’t think nostalgia always means wanting to return to the past.

Sometimes it means missing the person you were while you were there.

Perhaps the Best Parts Aren’t Behind Us

But I hope you don’t feel that all the most exciting parts of your life are behind you. Maybe the next wonderful thing won’t look anything like what came before.

We live in a world that seems terribly enamoured with youth.

Youthful beauty. Youthful energy. Youthful possibilities.

As though life reaches some spectacular peak in our twenties before beginning a long, unremarkable descent.

What a depressing arrangement.

And not a particularly convincing one, either.

There are things I possess now that I didn’t have at twenty-one.

A better understanding of myself, for one.

More perspective. More independence. A greater awareness of what matters to me, and what really doesn’t.

I may not have the innocence of my younger years, but I have something else.

The ability to choose more deliberately how I want to live.

And perhaps that’s a rather wonderful exchange.

Lately, I’ve been trying to bring some of the qualities I miss about those years into my present life.

Not to recreate university.

That would be difficult, for a start. I don’t particularly fancy having to submit assignments again.

But the curiosity.

The spontaneous conversations.

The long afternoons spent reading, wandering, meeting people, and discovering things simply because they interest me.

The willingness to turn up somewhere without knowing exactly what will happen.

Those things aren’t reserved for twenty-one-year-olds.

I can have them now.

And so can you.

A Little Message to My Future Self

Here’s something I’ve been thinking about.

Ten years from now, the person I am today will also belong to the past.

She’ll become another younger version of myself.

Another collection of photographs, conversations, walks, ordinary afternoons, and little decisions.

And I wonder what I’ll remember about her.

Will I wish she’d worried less?

That she’d gone out more, laughed more, taken more chances?

That she’d stopped waiting for life to become something else before allowing herself to enjoy it?

I hope not.

I hope I’ll remember that she made an effort to live.

That she allowed herself to be curious.

That she went to concerts, met friends, explored new places, read wonderful books, and occasionally did things that made absolutely no practical sense.

That she learned to appreciate the ordinary days while they were still ordinary days.

Because someday, these will be the days I miss.

And I’d rather not spend them wishing I were somewhere else.

Instead of spending so much time wishing we’d done more when we were younger, what if we made sure we have things to remember fondly about this period of our lives?