She is already there when I get to the café at precisely the time we’d agreed, a cappuccino in front of her and her nose buried in a book. She has chosen a corner table from which you can see everything that’s going on. I wave, and she smiles shyly, her glowing 23-year-old face looking so much younger than she is. I get myself a cappuccino, too, and an almond croissant for the two of us to share. Neither of us touches it.  “We still struggle?” she asks, gesturing at the pastry, a hint of despair in her voice. “We’ve found ways to handle it”, I reassure her. “But some things don’t get easier when you’re 50.” 

“So…. where do we live?”  “In America.”

“What?! But what happened to London?” “We did that, but it was a long time ago. Our daughter lives there though.” A chuckle. She high-fives me.

“The other one lives in Texas.” Now, she stares. “No fucking way!” “Oh yes, and we lived there too, for a while.” She starts cackling hysterically.
“So… I take it we didn’t marry him?”

“No.” She’s silent, and her eyes are looking sad for a moment. “But we loved him so much”, she whispers. 

I put a hand on her shoulder. “We were too much for him though. We would have made each other so unhappy.” 

“How did we manage to leave?” she asks, and I shrug. “Fate? And bad impulse control. Still an issue.”

She laughs. “So did we find someone who could handle us?”

“Oh yes, we did. And we built a beautiful family together.”

She smiles happily, shaking her head. “Who would have thought we’d be a mama…”
I laugh out loud. “You have no idea how much you have to look forward to. It’s a pretty amazing life.”

“But what about our career? Did we go to Brussels? The UN?”

I smile. “No. We found that it wasn’t actually what we really wanted to do. We only thought that because others told us we should.”

She looks at me quizzically. I can tell that she finds it hard to reconcile all this with her current knowledge.

“Are we happy?”

“Mostly, yes. We’re prone to letting what goes on in the world get us down.”

Her eyes are question marks. “We’re actually neurodivergent.” “Neuro-what?” More question marks. “We get diagnosed with ADHD; that’s one part of the puzzle. It’s why we always feel so out of place and so incompetent. And so emotional.” A big whoosh of air escapes from her mouth. “You mean, there’s an explanation for all the shit we’ve gone through?”, she asks, eyebrows raised. I nod. “There’s a lot more to come. It takes a long time until we understand it all. That we’re perfectly fine, just the way we are.”

She’s quiet for a moment, and then she hugs me. “You know, I want to be more involved from now on”, she says. “Help you remember all those dreams of yours.” She takes a big bite out of the croissant.

I kiss her forehead and hug her tightly, her familiar shape melting into me. “I’d like that. Maybe we can figure it all out together.”