If you could sit across from yourself at twenty-five, what would you tell her?
Wear SPF daily. Post the bikini picture. Save a little money. Hell, invest it. Dump him sooner. Take the last-minute trip abroad.
Then, somewhere between the first glass of wine and the second, you’d get to the real stuff.
Maybe you’d assure her that one day, she’ll understand that “no” really is a full sentence.
That it’s okay to stop acting as someone else’s first mate in favor of being the captain of her own ship.
That she may be mistaking being needed for being valued. That how much she gives and how much she’s worth were never part of the same equation.
Tell her that sometimes what she calls patience is actually fear. That being “easygoing” can become another way of stalling on her bigger dreams.
The older women who say, “I don’t tolerate bullshit anymore” aren’t just bragging. They’re describing the kind of self-assuredness that only arrives after you’ve spent years abandoning yourself to keep everyone else comfortable, only to realize…it will never work.
And realizing, finally, that you’re allowed to choose differently.
Maybe that’s what you’d want her to know most: she doesn’t have to wait fifteen, twenty years for permission.
The waistband she keeps adjusting.
The lunch invitation she doesn’t want to accept.
The “friend” she’s exhausted from explaining herself to.
The bra she cannot wait to take off.
Because her body has been talking to her this whole time.
She never needed more time. She needed you to tell her she was allowed.
So give it to her.
Wear the thing that feels good. Say what you mean. Order dessert. Hold court in the room. Leave early. Stay late. Change your mind.
And for God’s sake, throw away that bra you hate.
TEAM EBY
