If Only I Could Tell You

by Hannah Beckerman

How, Audrey thought, do you get to the end of your life and feel as though you’ve barely begun?

You can’t change others’ behaviour. You can only control your own reaction to it.

It’s the greatest trick people play on themselves, allowing their fears to destroy their ambitions.’

Regret. It was such a powerful word, a word that implied the desire for an undoing.

She thought about all those hours she had wasted over the years: the boring TV shows she’d watched, the depressing newspaper articles she’d read, the friendships she’d allowed to run miles beyond their course. All those days she’d pottered through life as though she had all the time in the world.

‘There’ll always be someone who disapproves of the choices you make. But as long as you understand the reasons for them, as long as you’re happy with them and no one’s unduly hurt by them, you need to be strong enough – brave enough – to make your own decisions.’

‘But what if you know your parents are going to disapprove? What if you know your choices will make them unhappy? What do you do then? What if they never forgive you?’

Your children have only one childhood. The years in which they need you – in which they really need you – flash by like a star shooting through the sky. A blink of an eye and they go from babies to toddlers. Another blink and they’re starting school. A third blink and they’re teenagers, stretching their wings and preparing for life without you. And then, one day, when you’re certain it can’t have been more than a few months since you first held them in your arms – bloodied and mucus-coated, their hungry mouths reaching for your breast – they’re gone.

There were as many different beginnings to a life as someone was brave and kind enough to allow themselves.