You know that strange kind of magic when you haven’t heard a song in years—maybe even a decade—and suddenly it drifts back into your world? It sneaks up on your heart, and you find yourself wondering how something once so dear could slip from memory. Then, just as the first notes spill out, you’re transported. In an instant, you’re back in a place you once guarded like sacred ground, and somehow the song on the radio and the quiet song inside your soul begin to echo each other, becoming one and the same.
That happened to me last night.
I was cooking dinner, moving through the simple rhythm of chopping and stirring, when I randomly turned on a Nanci Griffith station. As the folk singer began introducing the story behind her song, I wasn’t standing in my kitchen anymore. I was 19 again. Oddly enough, the story she was sharing had almost nothing in common with my own life back then. Still, it carried me straight back to that age, that town, that fragile version of me who lived somewhere between dreams and doubt.
It didn’t remind me of a great love.
It didn’t stir a certain friend or a single unforgettable memory.
It reminded me of the girl I was 23 years ago.
So vividly, in fact, that it felt like she had slipped into my kitchen and taken my place at the stove. I hovered above her in my imagination—almost like a quiet ghost—aching for a conversation we had never been able to have.
And suddenly we were no longer cooking dinner.
We were sitting across from each other at my favorite college-town coffee shop.
I leaned forward, studying that version of Melinda: she’s smoking, already several cigarettes in, the table piled with poetry notebooks and half-formed ideas for a paper due the next day. She looks up now and then, eager to chat with strangers beside her, but still unsure of what her voice really sounds like.
Her eyes move restlessly around the room—not out of curiosity, but from caution. She wonders if she belongs. She throws on clothes without thought, unaware she is beautiful and has no idea she could tell stories even through style. Something inside her is hiding.
She wants desperately to sing at Open Mic night. She feels the pull like a thread tugging at her heart, but fear keeps her seated unless courage is coaxed by a couple of cans of Coors Light. Tonight is not the night. Maybe next time.
She hopes a friend will wander in to keep her company through the long study hours. Her circle is wonderfully mismatched—chain-smoking outsiders, frat boys who treat her like a mom, wealthy kids finding recovery, and sweet souls from campus ministry. They rarely blend together, but she loves each one in their own way.
And there is a boy.
A boy who will burn her heart’s house down to the foundation.
If he walked through the door, I know I would shout across the table—
RUN.
Run fast.
Run far.
Then I’d take her face in my hands, my voice softer and steadier, and whisper, “Whatever you do, do not look back.”
The scene dissolved like waking from a heavy dream. I blinked back into real life, startled by how deeply I’d felt that visit to my younger self. But I couldn’t leave her there—not alone in that smoky café.
So I went back.
This time, she could see me—the me from now. I introduced myself awkwardly, like someone she’d meet years down the road. I squared my shoulders, caught her attention, and spoke with gentle urgency. I knew I couldn’t spare her from heartbreak or hard lessons, but I wanted to place truth in her hands—truth she’d need to hold when life felt relentless. Maybe if she heard it, the future me would carry it, too.
I began:
You will quit smoking one day, though other habits will tug at you. Choose wisely. Bad habits fade, but stop playing with the fire that pretends to comfort you.
Those messy piles of poems and papers? They’ll grow into something that reveals your truest self. Save them. Don’t bury your stories for “someday.” Tell them along the way.
Stop talking just to be liked. Some people will stay, others won’t. It will exhaust you before you finally learn, but you will learn—and you won’t disappear.
You won’t fit in. Hardly anyone truly does. But you will belong—to God, and to a handful of rare, luminous people who love deeply and honestly. They will see you.
Clothes don’t define you, but neither are they a hiding place. You are beautiful. Dress like someone who knows it—not flaunting, not drowning. Shame looks different on everyone, but you’ll learn not to live from it. Eventually, you’ll recognize beauty everywhere, and that will change everything.
About singing: you will sing. You’ll forget the words the first time you stand up in front of people, cheeks burning as the room gasps softly. But your voice will rise again, and one day it will become worship, no matter the melody.
Your friendships will remain beautifully mixed—from CEOs to felons. You will love that about your life. Keep seeing hearts before labels. It matters more than anything.
And yes, that boy will break nearly everything. You won’t run until the house is almost ashes. But you will lace up your shoes one day, trembling, and you will run—away from him and toward the version of you who is slowly becoming me.
By then I was holding my 19‑year‑old face with my 42‑year‑old hands, both of us crying. Silence wrapped around us until real life slipped back in. The kitchen returned. Dinner needed finishing. Laughter bounced around the table. I stepped fully into my now—my people, my life, my moment.
Later, with the girls tucked into bed and my husband working nearby, I replayed that Nanci Griffith song while soaking in the tub, letting that café conversation circle back through my heart.
I loved that young girl.
But I didn’t love her nearly enough.
So now, in honor of who she was and in trust of the white‑haired version I’ll one day become, I want to love this present self better.
And I can’t help but wonder—
what will we talk about the next time we meet across that table?
