Saturday 18 July 2026
Gosh it’s been busy and I have much to catch up on so let’s start with milestone birthdays … and coming face to face with your younger self!
Several University friends of mine are now hitting milestone birthdays and the Summer has been dotted with parties to mark the momentous occasions. It has been great; chances to meet up and catch-up, enjoy good food and drink … and even indulge in dancing!
Although we first met 30 years ago, I have been good pals with most for many years. We’ve holidayed together, toasted in New Years together and watched our children play together. So we are very much used to the older versions of each other. But when I am taken to see the photo gallery at tonight’s gathering, I realise that I have also become over-accustomed to the more-aged myself; the mum, the bill payer, the problem solver, the grafter.
One of the party rooms is full of lots of pics of us all from our teens and 20s. I am literally transfixed by my own photos. Yes younger! Yes thinner! But it is more than that…I actually don’t recognise myself.
Who is that girl? Where has she gone? …Is she ever coming back?
She looks happy, calm and at peace. She looks free! By contrast life has made me tough and resilient but also… often worried and sad. The walls of responsibility have closed around me and I know that this girl is never coming back.
For this night only, particularly as music from our college bar steals through the night air into the party gathering, I can close my eyes and picture myself stepping right back to this time. But it really hits me now that this is only a passing moment of nostalgia. My youth is gone. I hope I made the most of it and just in case I didn’t I resolve to make sure that I encourage my three offspring to relish these precious years, they are such a special time…
Smashing Single Parenthood 