The Good Part

by Sophie Cousens

“Be careful what you wish for,” the old woman says, and I look up to see her watching me from her seat behind the till. “Life is never quite sorted, whatever stage you’re at.”

“If I’ve learned anything in life, it’s that it’s best to keep an open mind and a closed toilet seat.”

“Well, we can only try our best,” I say, then realize I’ve just used a phrase my dad often said to me. Do these phrases sit dormant in our minds, just waiting to be deployed when we become parents ourselves?

There were weekends in my twenties where I would wander the London parks for hours, listening to music, just watching life go by. I didn’t have to tell anyone where I was going or when I’d be back.

Is that what life is—missing out in your twenties because you have no money, then missing out in your forties because you have no time?