“i met my younger self for coffee. She got there ten minutes late. I got there five minutes early & grabbed us a table.”
@emmahagarman on TikTok is just one of countless users participating in the new “coffee with my younger self” trend. This trend encourages self-reflection, prompting viewers to share what they would say if they met up for coffee with a younger version of themselves. Jennae Cecelia, a 31-year-old poet, created a poem she posted to TikTok called “I Met My Younger Self for Coffee,” which went viral and inspired this trend. Though this poem is only a preview of her upcoming book, it has gone viral with over 16 million posts under the “coffee with my younger self” page. Through this trend, TikTok users have shared everything about themselves, from elements as surface-level as their tardiness to as profound as their sexuality. These confessions can be cathartic and emotional, both for the creators and those who view them.
However, not everyone on TikTok has enjoyed the coffee. Other users, like @katrinathrifts, have satirized the trend, making corny comparisons between their past and present selves and joking that “this is how … yall sound.” Some TikTok users roll their eyes at the sickly-sweet rhetoric that this trend has helped create, while others use it as a platform to let go of their past selves. Overall, people on TikTok have mixed opinions on the trend, none of which are necessarily right or wrong. Personally, I think the trend can go either way. Though I have not participated in the trend, it has helped me contemplate how much I have changed in the last five years.
When I was 15, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I had just realized the friends I had for the last couple of years were toxic — though they did not give me a chance to figure that out before kicking me out of their group. On top of that, I attended an extremely competitive, cutthroat public high school where the sole focus was how many AP classes you took, your GPA and the prestige of the colleges you could get into. Though my graduating class had over 1,000 students, cliques, which were dictated mainly by extracurriculars, were practically impenetrable. Needless to say, my anxiety was through the roof practically all the time.
If I could meet my 15-year-old self for coffee, I would first give her a massive hug. She has no idea how strong she is, simply for existing in all the enormous change she’d been through. With the COVID-19 pandemic ending her freshman year, she was thrown for a loop while trying desperately to make new friends. After I let her go from the hug, I would tell her that it gets better. Her bad grade in physics didn’t define her life, and she winds up getting into a great school in her favorite city in the world. I would tell her that, slowly but surely, she would find a fantastic group of friends with people just as nerdy as her, but who also know how to have a little fun.
I would tell her that she is loved by her peers, by her family and, most of all, by God. I would validate her undying passion for dance (even after quitting a few years back) and tell her I wound up getting into my high school’s elite junior-senior dance company, finally finding people who were as driven by its preciseness as I am. Lastly, I would tell her that she would finally feel comfortable enough to be her true self after she came to college and that in doing so, she would find so many people who love her for her.
It gets so much better, Julia. You have no idea.
Although the “Coffee with my Younger Self” trend is not perfect, I believe it can be an excellent opportunity to become cognizant of how much we can change in just a few years. Whether or not viewers of this trend choose to participate in it, simply seeing the videos — and maybe even relating to them — can spur them to consider how much they have learned since they were younger. It can be therapeutic to reflect on your past and realize how much you’ve grown, or even better, how you could grow in the future. Overall, this trend can provide a lesson for all of us: getting older has its perks, but we all could use a little time connecting with our less mature selves. They might just teach us something.
Julia Burnham, FCRH ’27, is a psychology major from Glencoe, Ill.
