The Girl You Left Behind✨

We Were Shining Stars. Now We're QUASARS.

There's something a bit surreal about spending a weekend with women who knew you when you were 15.

Last weekend I was away with two of my oldest friends — the ones from high school in Auckland, back when the uniforms were criminal, the hair was big (it was the 80s, don't judge) and we had VERY firm ideas about how our lives were going to go.

We were going to travel. Have careers. Fall madly in love. Live fabulous lives.

None of us saw the actual version coming.

Over a couple of days we talked our way through where life had actually taken each of us. The good bits. The spectacularly atrocious bits. What we'd achieved, what we'd survived, and every unplanned detour in between.

But the thing I kept coming back to wasn't how much we'd changed.

It was how much of those girls was still there.

There's something wonderful about people who knew you before all the adulting started. They remember things about you that you've forgotten — what made you laugh, what you were good at, what you couldn't shut up about, the ridiculous things you did and the things you were absolutely certain you'd do one day.

Which got me wondering:

What did I love doing then — just because I loved it?

Not because it was useful. Not because someone needed me to. Not because I could monetise it, tick it off a list or justify the time. Just because it made me happy.

Because somewhere between 15 and 59, life gets VERY full.

We become wives, mothers, employees, bosses, carers, organisers, bill-payers, appointment-makers and the one person in the house who apparently knows where everything lives.

And without ever deciding to, some of the things that used to light us up get shoved to the back of the cupboard.

I don't think the answer is to become those girls again. God, no. You couldn't pay me to be 15 again.

But I do think there's something in there worth reclaiming.

Maybe it's the music you stopped listening to. Drawing. Dancing. Writing. Swimming. Getting on a bike. Going somewhere just to see what's there. Wearing the impractical thing because you LOVE it. Losing an afternoon to a book. Calling the friend who makes you laugh until you snort.

Whatever your version is.

What did you love before you got so responsible?

And could you have a bit of it back?

Which brings me to quasars.

I used the word as a joke, at first. We were talking about the girls we'd been, and I said something like:

“We were shining stars back then. We're f&@king QUASARS now. Watch out world — we've ARRIVED.”

Then I looked up what a quasar actually is.

And now I love it even more.

A quasar is an obscenely luminous object powered by a supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy. As matter swirls in, it releases so much energy that quasars become some of the brightest things in the entire universe — some shine thousands of times brighter than an entire galaxy.

Well. Hello. 😂

Because isn't that rather fabulous?

We talk about ageing like our brightest bit is behind us. Like the young girl was the shining star and we're all just gradually dimming into a quieter, more sensible version of her.

Bugger that.

Those girls were shining stars. Glorious, actually. Full of dreams and excitement, with absolutely no idea what was coming for them.

But look at what's been added since.

Forty-odd years of loving and losing. Living life! Raising children. Building careers. Friendships. Heartbreak. Adventures. Mistakes. Starting again. Knowing when to fight — and, more importantly, finally knowing what isn't worth the fight.

We haven't replaced those girls.

We've accumulated around them.

Their curiosity is still ours. Their silliness is still ours. What they loved hasn't disappeared, either — it's just buried under a few decades of being a very busy grown-up.

And maybe that's the genuinely good part about reaching this age.

We get to choose what comes with us now.

We can leave behind the insecurity, the desperate need to be liked, the expectations that were never actually ours to begin with.

And we can go rummaging for the good stuff we accidentally left behind.

Last weekend reminded me of the girl I was.

I don't want her life.

But I want bits of her back in mine.

We were shining stars.

And after everything we've lived, learned, loved and survived since?

We're QUASARS now.

Watch out world.

We've arrived. 💕