I felt the leaves crunch under my feet as we walked up the path. It was a cool day, with a light breeze that complemented the warm sunlight. I kept my hands in my dress pockets, and my eyes on the trees that grew all along the path. Trees are the most beautiful, magical things, aren’t they? They stand strong and silent, a witness to the ages, surviving the worst and best of us. I especially love it when they sway in the breeze like this, their canopy of leaves dancing about, making the light look like they are twinkling above us.

I looked to the young girl keeping pace with me on my right, freshly 20; her wavy hair flitting about around her face, hands gripping the strap of her sling bag, eyes on her feet. We didn’t say anything after our initial hi, hello, how are you? We just started walking together, not really knowing where we’re going, just following the trees and the path and the gentle push of the wind.

I turned my gaze to her wrists, adorned by multiple bracelets, ineffectively disguising the small scars.

“You’re not still doing that, are you?” I asked her, keeping my eyes on her arms. She turned to me, then followed my gaze, and immediately put her hands in her pockets.

“No, not anymore. Not in a while. I didn’t really do it a lot. Only when it got to be too much.” She said it with a casual matter-of-factness that caught me a little off guard. I thought she would sound a little bit more defensive than that; I don’t recall her being so open about it.

“That’s good,” I said to her, turning my eyes back on the path, looking for somewhere to sit. We had been walking up a bit of a hill for a few minutes, and I was beginning to feel done with it. We finally reached the top, paused to catch our breath and take in the view of the city. To the left of us was a tree with a bench right underneath, and not a person in sight. “Perfect”, I muttered under my breath, and gestured towards it. We settled on the bench and sat in even more silence for a few minutes. It really was the perfect day for this, the blue sky and cool breeze making it easy to sit and be still.

She broke the silence with a question. “What’s it like, being your age?”
I let out a snort. “What do you mean? What’s it like being old? Forty isn’t old, you know. Not on the inside anyway. The outside is a different story.” I gently patted my right knee, smiling at the memory of many a night spent dancing. I guess she hasn’t gotten around to that part yet. I think getting crunchy knees because I was dancing for countless hours is a pretty good reason. No one can accuse me of not having any fun.

She lifted her bag strap over her head and set it on the space between us. She leaned back on the bench, brows furrowed. “No, I mean like, is it harder? Is it easy? Do you know how to do things? Like, do you just… get things now?” I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Absolutely not. You still don’t know much at all. I guess the difference is that you’re not so scared about not knowing what the next step is. I don’t know if it’s harder, because your mind and my mind are totally different right now. What’s hard or easy for you isn’t going to be the same for me.”

I waited for her to respond, but she didn’t seem satisfied with my answer. She looked at my face intently, like she was waiting for more. I remember what that’s like, that desire for reassurance, for someone to tell me that everything is going to be okay.

“Hey,” I said softly, “It may not get easier but you get better at rolling with the punches. You get stronger, smarter, healthier, wiser. Sure heartbreak comes, but it comes for everyone. And it comes in many forms. But the idea of pain is often much harder than the pain itself. Well, most of the time, anyway. At the end of the day, you have so much you can hold on to, more than you even know. I promise.”

This seemed to satisfy her for a bit, and she started rummaging in her bag. She took out a pack of cigarettes and a bright pink lighter. “You mind?” She asked. “I do, actually. Please don’t, it’s such a nice day. And that terrible habit is going to make you sick.” Images of gigs and shoots and parties clouded by cigarette smoke filled my mind, and I felt glad I kicked that habit eventually.

“Oh, okay, sorry.” She put them back in her bag and leaned back again. She started fiddling with her bracelets. She always fiddled when she was nervous – with her bracelets, flipping a pen around, folding and unfolding paper repeatedly. She doesn’t know this yet, but that gets elevated to wanting to vomit from so much stress. Man, the time between 20 and 40 is such a big gap. She’s going to go through so much and she has no clue that she’s just at the beginning of everything.

She took a deep breath as she started tracing the scars on her wrists. “I don’t know if you remember, but sometimes I get really, like,” she hesitated for a second before continuing.

“Sometimes I get really sad. Like black ink gets injected into my bloodstream and it slowly takes over my lungs and crawls up my neck and then invades my mind. And I go from feeling everything to feeling nothing. Sometimes taking something sharp and hurting yourself a little bit feels so much better than the dark stuff. But I don’t do that anymore, don’t worry. I’ve kind of found other things to help deal with that stuff. Does that happen to you? Do you still have moments like that? Like nothing is ever going to get better.” She was staring at her hands now, inspecting the lines on her skin and picking at her nails. I know that by “other things” she meant substances that helped numb the darkness. She looked so young. So unsure. All I wanted to do was hold her in a tight embrace and tell her that everything was going to be okay, that things have an end and a beginning and it’s just a constant cycle of that. That there would be more sunshine than rain. That Love would find her in all of its forms, and it would be more than enough to carry her through.

But I didn’t move. I knew she didn’t really like being affectionate like that; just not something she was used to. It’s a good thing we were having this conversation under a tree on a breezy day. Instead of silence, we get to listen to the rustle of leaves and the sounds of birds singing. That always makes us feel more at ease with the world and the difficult feelings that come with being alive. I took a deep breath before I answered her, hoping that what I say next would assuage her fears.

“That takes a while to go away, if I’m being honest. At first it becomes almost unbearable, and you might think that it would be so much better if you just… stopped existing. But you have to wait, because that feeling always, always goes away. Something always happens that will remind you of how beautiful and exhilarating it is to be alive, even if sometimes life punches you in the gut. There will be so, so many days when you wonder if the darkness ends, and let me tell you right now that it does. It does. It always does. And the older you get, the better you get at confronting them – the shadows and the voices that try to bring you down. You get so strong, and no one will know what you have to fight every day, but that’ okay, it doesn’t matter. What matters is you know. You know. You just have to remind yourself to stay alive for just one more day. Every day, tell yourself, just one more day. At some point, you’ll be so busy living that you don’t even notice that it’s been so long since you’ve had to convince yourself. You’ll just be living.”

A few clouds passed overhead, momentarily covering us in an overcast glow. I saw her shoulders shiver a little as she turned away from me and hastily wiped her face. She always did hate crying in front of people, and it frustrated her that tears always came so easily. Happy, sad, angry — whatever the emotion, tears would involuntarily well up in her eyes and flood them. That won’t change; she’ll always be a bit of a crybaby.

After a few moments, the clouds passed and the late afternoon light shone brightly again, making us squint a little as our eyes adjusted to it. The sky will turn pink and gold soon, and we’ll have to start walking back down. She sighed deeply, releasing a breath that sounded like it had been held in for ages, pain and relief and hope all swirling together in a tangled mess. She leaned her head back and looked up at the tree, eyes following the dancing leaves. Without looking at me, she asked, “Well, do you like your life then? Is it good? Did you do everything you thought you would?”

I turned to look at the view below us. The sun was going to set soon, and lights were turning on in the distant buildings, like stars on the ground.

“Yes. And no.” I adjusted my position to face her. “Yes, I love my life. It is a good life. I am loved, and I have so much to love. And no, I didn’t get to do everything I thought I would, but I have no qualms about that. I know you’re nowhere near God right now, but he will not stop pursuing you. Trust me, he doesn’t know how to give up and at every turn he will meet you where you are. I eventually realized that I was going to have to trust him with every single thing. So I did, and I do, and the way my life is turning out to be… it’s so much more than I ever thought it would be. And I still have so much ahead, so everyday I wake up with hopeful expectation. I know that when all my days have been lived, I would have lived the heck out of it.”

There was a long silence after that, but something in the air shifted. Her shoulders released its tightness and her hands no longer fidgeted. She absentmindedly ran them through her hair as she leaned her head on the bench and stared up at the swaying branches. She smiled a little and turned to look at me. “Is your husband funny?” I laughed and said yes, my husband is funny. We laugh everyday and it’s what keeps us going. “Does it take long to find him?” She asked. “A little bit,” I said. “But I think we’ll always find each other no matter what path we take. You’ve met him, actually. You just don’t know it yet. That’s all I’m going to say about that!” It was her turn to laugh, and the uncertainty in her eyes was replaced with something that resembled hopefulness. “Okay, okay, whatever!” She said dismissively. But I saw that look on her face, and I knew then that she was just a little bit less afraid.

The sun was setting now. The sky was painted in hues of pink and purple and orange, the shadows on the hill shifted and the air started to get colder. “I think we should start heading down.” I said as I stood up, smoothing my skirt down. She stood and slung her bag across her shoulders and chest, her bracelets making clicking noises. “I like your dress.” She said, touching the fabric of my skirt gingerly. “Thanks,” I said, “it has pockets!” and twirled before we started walking down the path we came from.

We talked a little bit more as we made our way back, the conversation getting lighter as the sky got darker. The stars began to pop out one by one above us, peeking through the branches of the trees with their twinkly hello. The moon shone brightly and lit up our path, accompanying us, both girl and woman, back to where the path diverged and we first met.

Finally, we had come to the bottom of the hill, where the world, and life, waited for us. I opened my arms in a gesture of embrace, wondering if she’d walk in and take it. She hesitated for a bit, and then fell into me, holding me tight for just a moment before releasing me and turning to walk away. I watched as she, as I, walked away, the first 20 years of me. I had not seen that version of myself for a very long time, and I had forgotten what it was like. How the burden always seemed so heavy; how everything always felt so final. I watched myself saunter off until the road curved and I could no longer see me.

As I began to walk in the other direction, I wondered if this chance would ever come again. Maybe one day an older version of myself will show up and tell me that it will all be okay.

I stop walking and look up at the moon. It’s full and bright, nestled by a few wisps of clouds. I can hear the rush of the cars and crickets playing their melodies in the trees. The city is alight now, shining in the horizon like a treasure trove glimmering in the darkness. I look at what’s ahead of me- a whole life, waiting to be lived. I don’t need to be told that everything is going to be okay. I know that I can take whatever comes my way, because I’m not alone. I truly never was. I promised 20-year-old me that I’m going to live the heck out of my days, and that’s a promise I intend on keeping.