Have you ever looked back on your life and thought, ‘if only I knew then, what I know now…’? Whether it’s dramas with love, family, or your career, we all learn from our experiences and eventually become all the wiser for it. 

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You carried around far too many suitcases with far too much in them as you hadn’t yet learned to release yourself from the attachment to worldly possessions. It doesn’t matter where you are going or for how long - you only need one suitcase. These days you pack one case, take half the stuff out, and then lock it.

I know you hated nursing but it was worth graduating because it taught you the meaning of the words hard work, discipline and getting dressed while walking to work.

You were very stupid to stop singing for twenty years - you could have been a musician and had a life of hardship, lung disease and cheap hotels. Instead you had a life of adventure, romance and French food.

When everyone said you would end up old, lonely and tragic because you didn’t want children, you were right to trust your instincts that you would have made a frustrated, neurotic mother, and refrain. Good on you for not putting all your eggs in one bastard. If you were happy and loved at twenty five, you will be happy and loved at fifty five, right on to ninety five.

OK, so when the man of your dreams ripped your heart out of your chest while it was still beating and threw it away, it took you a while to recover and you became a bit bitter and twisted. Eventually and fortunately, you remembered that although noone has yet invented a way to take away pain, singing and music come close because they turn pain into beauty.

When everyone said you must get a serious job, you must buy a house, you must have a retirement fund and you ignored them, you did get a bit behind in the affluence stakes but you were right not to worry about it and walk your own path.

You and your twenty-five-year-old friends had no idea of the power you had over men - you are the point of their lives - use it, don’t abuse it.

I can’t believe how much you ate and never got fat - that changes trust me. You don’t know this yet because you are a drug and alcohol therapist, but food became your job and your greatest joy - eating and cooking are the cheapest and easiest way to make yourself and others happy. That happiness is fleeting,          Photo: Sally Tag
thank God, which necessitates frequent repetition.

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