When We Meet Our Younger Selves Coming Off A Train in Glasgow

Dear Friend,

Do you remember being 17, balancing in heels with slippery soles and straps that cut in at the ankle?

My see-through tights are already ripped. I feel so grown up, but my youth is evident in my attempts to desperately balance from station to pavement to platform to bar.

I feel so grown up yet so fragile, so unbelieving of my authority, cautiously moving in dangerous steps on uneven cobblestones and treacherous concrete steps.

This is what grown-up women do. Stride at great heights.

This is being a grown-up, drinking a sugary sweet mixer from a bottle at a bar, someone who is already 18 got us into.

Balancing from table to toilet.

Balancing from longing to lived.

What I didn’t know then was that my adult self would do so much balancing. Those heels: an initiation into womanhood. Not dressed to kill but dressed to cautiously move forward. To check, to cling, to affirm.

A way of living that required attentiveness to things that I did not know would need my attention.

My tiny red skirt a declaration of freedom. My discounted sparkly heels, not as rebellious as they seemed.

More of a sort of clattering inheritance.

Maybe it’s time to lose our balance, friends?

Catriona

Prompt

Where would you like to lose your balance?

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