I Didn’t Meet My Younger Self for Coffee — She Showed Up Uninvited (Part 1)
A Story About Self-Doubt, Failing, and the Parts of Us That Refuse to Be Erased
Chapter 3
When She Came Back for Me
I didn’t get on the “I met my younger self for a coffee” wagon.
Not because I wasn’t tempted, God knows I was.
For weeks, those introspective, deep-healing, inner-child reckonings were everywhere. From LinkedIn to TikTok to Substack to the corners of my own mind.
I read so many that it felt like I was living in the behind-the-scenes of a million girls and women, each of them sitting across from their past selves, whispering words of wisdom, offering reassurance, handing over hope like a warm cup between trembling fingers.
But I didn’t write one. Not because I didn’t have things to say. But because I’ve been having these conversations for years. Decades. Because in therapy, these sit-downs with her weren’t just poetic exercises.
They were my survival. They were the reason I’m still here, writing this, talking to you.
And I do know this, she would love reading these stories.
She would love knowing that thousands, millions of other girls have been fighting their own battles, tending to their scars, walking themselves home.
But her?
No. She wouldn’t have chosen to meet me like that.
She was never one for soft conversations in coffee shops.
She was unorthodox.
She was restless.
She was loud in the most unexpected ways.
I told you in the last edition that I would unfold my writing journey.
But journey doesn’t feel like the right word, because, for years, I didn’t write at all.
She did.
She wrote relentlessly, obsessively, like a maniac. She wrote like she was trying to outrun something.
And if I tried to read those pages now? I don’t know if I could. They are scary.
Frightening. Unsettling.
Maybe one day I’ll share something.
Maybe I won’t.
I need to ask her.
Because here’s the thing, she and I, we go hand in hand now. I told you that.
But it wasn’t always like this. For a long time, she disappeared.
For a long time, I lost her.
So no, I won’t be writing “I met my younger self for coffee.”
Sorry, Jennae Cecelia. Your poem is beautiful, but I’ve been sitting across from her for years, and trust me, she never needed an invitation.
She came to find me.
She walked straight in, with fire in her eyes and pages of unfinished stories in her hands.
And she had things to say.
So here it is.
This is not me meeting her.
This is when she came back for me.
I Don’t Drink Coffee. Let’s Start There.
“She wouldn’t meet me gently across a café table, sipping tea, offering closure.
No.
She would walk straight into my home, without knocking, without asking, without hesitation, just like she used to walk into bookstores and the lives of fictional characters, slipping between their pages as if they belonged to her.
She would find me at my desk, or maybe sitting on the floor in the middle of an afternoon existential crisis, staring at my laptop screen, caught between starting and quitting.
She would toss her bag into the corner, stand there with arms crossed and her expression unreadable.
“So, this is where we ended up?”
And just like that, I would be back in my childhood bedroom.
She Doesn’t Ask. She Knows.
I don’t have to explain the past two decades. She already knows.
She knows about the masks, the ones I learned to wear so well that even I forgot what was underneath.
She knows about the years I spent performing, inhabiting spaces that didn’t feel like home, fitting into roles like costumes, always convincing, always adapting.
She knows how I spent my twenties running, chasing, reinventing, searching for something I couldn’t name. How I kept telling myself that if I could just achieve enough, prove enough, become enough, maybe the knot in my chest would untangle itself.
She knows how that chase ended.
With exhaustion. With collapse.
With the realization that I had spent so long trying to be everything, I had lost sight of anything real.
She sits down across from me, cross-legged, just like she used to sit on her bed, scribbling poetry in the margins of books no one else her age was reading.
“You were supposed to grab life by the balls,” she says flatly.
I exhale. “I tried.”
She smirks. “And?”
I look away. “And life grabbed me back.”
She nods, as if she expected that.
The Girl I Left Behind
I study her as she studies me.
She’s younger, but not fragile. She is not soft, not hesitant.
She is sharp-edged, full of fire, too much for the world but never apologizing for it.
She is the best of me, even though the world tried its hardest to turn her into all the wrongs.
She is the girl who wrote because it was the only way to breathe.
She is the girl who read André Breton, Nikos Engonopoulos, Baudelaire, and The Great Eastern, the magnum opus of Empeirikos, the book her mother found and threw away.
She didn’t know better.
She didn’t understand that you never throw away a book, let alone that book.
Books are sacred. It feels like throwing away a piece of someone’s world.
It shattered something in her. It made her furious.
But she forgave her, years and years later, in one of those quiet meet-ups, where we spoke of old hurts, not to reopen them, but to finally let them rest.
Because those books weren’t just words on a page. They were portals to another universe.
And that girl memorized poetry like prayers and filled notebooks with frantic, urgent, alive words.
She lived more in her imagination than in the real world. She had to.
Because reality felt like something she was never meant to belong to.
She looks at me, tilting her head. “Are you still writing?”
I swallow. “Not as much as I should be.”
She sighs. “Figures.”
She picks up a notebook from my desk. Flips through it. Finds the empty pages.
“You used to write because you had to,” she reminds me. “Now you’re waiting for permission.”
She lets the silence stretch between us.
The Myths We Grow Up Believing
She is younger, but she is wiser.
Not because she has lived more, but because she hasn’t unlearned herself yet.
She doesn’t care about my résumé. She doesn’t ask about my achievements. She doesn’t give a damn about what I’ve done, she wants to know what I’ve kept.
“You were so scared of failure,” she says, shaking her head. “Like it was some kind of permanent stain. Like it could undo you.”
She laughs, but not unkindly.
“And yet, here you are. Still standing.”
I inhale sharply.
She leans in.
What if we got it all wrong?
What if failure isn’t proof of our shortcomings, but proof of our willingness to try?
What if quitting isn’t a weakness, but knowing when to walk away?
What if the person I spent so long trying to become wasn’t better than her, but just further from her?
What if success isn’t a place, but a return?
“You think failure is what broke you?” she asks.
I shake my head. “No. What broke me was trying to be everything I wasn’t.”
She nods, satisfied.
“Did the world make you smaller?”
“Or did you let it?”
I look at her. At the version of me that still believed. That still thought life could be extraordinary. At the girl the world tried to break, but who refused to bend.
I wanted to tell her I was getting there. That I was trying. That I was unlearning. That maybe I hadn’t lost her at all.
That maybe, just maybe, she had never left.
“Are we done with that now?” she asks.
I hesitate.
She waits.
And then, finally, I say it.
“Yes.”
She smiles, wide and wild, full of the kind of certainty I used to have before the world chipped away at it.
“Good,” she says.
She reaches for my hand, squeezes it once.
“Good,” she repeats.
“Come back to me. Let’s begin again.”
And just like that, she’s gone.
But I’m not.
Not anymore.
A Meeting That Was Never Mine to Call
Maybe I was never supposed to meet my younger self for coffee.
Maybe she was never the one who needed answers.
Maybe she came back because I was the one who needed saving.
Because after years of shapeshifting, of becoming what I thought the world needed me to be,
I finally started asking what I needed to be.
And maybe, this is what failing forward really means.
“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” — Soren Kierkegaard
The lessons don’t arrive when we want them to.
We don’t see the patterns while we’re in them.
We don’t recognize the turning points until we’ve already turned.
We stumble through the present, searching for clarity, only to find that understanding waits for us in the rearview mirror.
By the time we grasp what a moment meant, it’s already gone.
But that’s the paradox of living: We can’t pause for meaning.
We can’t stop to analyze before we move. We have to step forward blindly, trusting that one day, when we look back, the pieces will make sense.
Failing forward is not a graceful, poetic evolution. Not a smooth transition from one version of myself to the next. But a messy, reluctant return.
A return to the girl who wrote like she was setting the page on fire.
A return to the girl who never needed permission to create, to dream, to want more.
And she doesn’t ask for permission now.
She just shows up.
Unapologetic. Unfiltered.
Maybe she came back because she was never really gone.
Maybe she was just waiting.
Waiting for me to remember who I was before the world told me who to be.
Waiting for me to stop performing, stop apologizing, stop waiting.
Maybe the version of me I have been chasing was always her.
And maybe, this time, I won’t let her go.
The Voice That Tries to Stop You
This time, I’ll hold on to her.
But even as she steps closer, something else lingers in the background.
A presence I know too well.
That other voice.
The one that’s been with me just as long.
It doesn’t storm in like my younger self did.
It doesn’t throw bags on the floor, doesn’t make direct eye contact, doesn’t sit cross-legged on my bed, reminding me of the person I used to be.
No.
This one creeps in quieter. A shadow in the corner. A whisper I’ve learned to mistake for my own thoughts.
“Are you sure about this?”
“Who do you think you are?”
“What if you fail? What if you already have?”
It has been here through every decision, every leap, every almost.
It was there when I took my first job as a journalist.
It was there the first time I sat in front of a live microphone, my hands trembling beneath the desk. It was there when I wrote, when I stopped writing, when I started again.
It was there when everything collapsed, when I thought I had to start over, when I wasn’t sure if I even could.
And it is here now. With this newsletter. With this edition. With these words.
Because that’s what self-doubt does.
It doesn’t care about your wins.
It doesn’t care that you’ve done this before, that you have proof of your resilience, that you have picked yourself up a hundred times and lived to tell the story.
It waits.
It hovers.
It doesn’t get quieter just because you get louder.
The Science of Self-Doubt: Why That Voice Exists
And here’s the thing, self-doubt isn’t always lying.
Not entirely.
It’s rooted in something real.
Psychologists call it the “imposter cycle”, a pattern where every new challenge triggers the same doubts, the same anxieties, the same internal battle between I can and I can’t.
It happens because the brain is wired to prioritize safety over growth.
To seek out familiarity, even when it’s uncomfortable.
Neuroscientists have studied this, how the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for processing fear, reacts to uncertainty the same way it reacts to danger.
Which means that every time we try something new, every time we step outside the identity we’ve built for ourselves, every time we risk failure, our brain sounds the alarm.
“Don’t do this.”
“This is unknown.”
“This could go wrong.”
And maybe that voice started early.
Maybe it first whispered when we were kids, when we got something wrong in class, when someone laughed at our answer, when we learned that failing felt like exposure.
Because self-doubt is learned.
Studies show that by age 7, children begin forming “self-theories”, deep-seated beliefs about their own abilities, often shaped by the way adults respond to their failures.
Research from Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck found that kids who are praised for effort tend to develop a growth mindset, while those praised for intelligence often develop a fear of failure, believing that mistakes mean they aren’t smart enough.
And that fear? It doesn’t disappear.
It follows us.
By adulthood, we don’t need teachers or parents to tell us what we can’t do.
No, we do it ourselves.
We become our own critics.
Our own limitations.
The Gremlin on My Shoulder
So here I am, sitting with my younger self’s voice in one ear and self-doubt in the other.
She tells me I need to write. That I need to remember who I am. That I need to stop waiting for permission.
The voice on my shoulder tells me to be careful. To not be too much. To not embarrass myself. To not get ahead of myself.
“Who do you think you are?”
And the truth? I don’t know.
Not entirely.
Not yet.
But self-doubt is not a reason to stop.
Because if I’ve learned anything, it’s this:
↳Fear doesn’t mean don’t do it. It means this matters.
↳Self-doubt doesn’t mean you’re wrong. It means you’re growing.
↳That voice in your head? It will always be there. But you don’t have to listen.
The Girl Who Knew Me Before I Forgot Myself
And this is when I think of my younger self again.
She didn’t hesitate before she wrote.
She didn’t overthink the first sentence, wondering if it was good enough.
She didn’t sit on ideas, waiting for the right time, the right mood, the right conditions.
She didn’t doubt if anyone would care.
She just began.
She wrote like it was oxygen. Like she would suffocate if she didn’t.
Like the stories had to leave her body or they’d consume her whole.
And maybe that’s what she came back to remind me.
She didn’t come back because she needed saving.
Maybe she came back because I did.
Because somewhere along the way, I stopped writing for myself.
I started waiting for permission. I started measuring the worth of my words by who was listening. I let doubt hold the pen instead.
And maybe, just maybe,
this time,
I’m ready to listen.
Who Were You Before the World Told You Who to Be?
Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be? If something burns your soul with purpose and desire, it's your duty to be reduced to ashes by it. Any other form of existence will be yet another dull book in the library of life.—Charles Bukowski
So there you have it.
The third chapter of this journey is coming to a close.
I know it’s a bit long, even Substack warned me it might get cut off in your email.
I tried to make it shorter, I really did.
But I need to tell you, there’s a second part.
I had to split it because, well… Can’t help it.
I told you when I first arrived here that these early editions might be personal.
In the next one, I might finally do a proper, or at least semi-proper, introduction and talk a little more about me.
I mean, you already know about her and me. But do you know me?
Maybe it’s time.
Maybe it’s overdue.
So yes, I’m spilling, unraveling, getting carried away in the thrill of rediscovering my writing, like a long-lost rhythm finally making its way back to me.
I hope you’ll forgive me for that.
I go with the flow.
I write when the words demand to be written.
I follow the threads where they lead, even when I don’t know the ending.
She would be proud. Yes, she would be.
The girl who once wrote relentlessly, feverishly, without fear or hesitation, she would smile, watching me find my way back to her.
She would nod in approval, knowing that I’m finally listening.
And now, I ask you, what about you?
If your younger self knocked on your door today, if they stepped into your life, unannounced, unfiltered, unapologetic?
What would they say to you? Would they recognize you?
Would they ask what happened to the dreams you had at nine, at twelve, at fifteen?
Would they be impressed by what you’ve built, or heartbroken by what you’ve abandoned?
Would they be relieved that you made it here, despite everything?
Would they remind you of who you were before the world tried to mold you?
Would they tell you to keep going?
To stop waiting?
To start again?
Would they ask if you’re happy?
And if the answer is anything less than yes, would they tell you it’s not too late to change that?
Maybe you don’t have the answers right now. Maybe the questions are more than enough.
But if nothing else, I hope you take a moment to sit with them.
Because, they are still waiting for you to remember.
So tell me, if your younger self stood in front of you today, what would they say?
I want to know.
Tell me in the comments. No pretending.
Let’s make this one loud.
Until next time,
Eleni
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It’s strange how close this feels. I didn’t meet her over coffee either, but she’s been showing up asking hard questions, reminding me who I used to be before I learned to shrink. That question about what she kept instead of what she achieved... that’s going to stay with me. Glad to be following your journey! *I also don't drink coffee 😂