Emily Pittard catches up with her younger self to reflect on girlhood, turbulent school years, and inherited strength.
I spot her straight away – grass-stained knees, hair doing its own thing, quietly humming to herself while drumming a rhythm on the table with two sugar sticks she’s decided are drumsticks. She’s 10, full throttle, and I slide a hot chocolate her way before I even sit down.
‘You look like me,’ she says, eyeing my latte art.
‘Yep,’ I laugh. ‘Still loud. Still heavy-handed. Still forgetting to brush the mud off.’ I thank her for never listening when someone said: ‘You can’t do that, you’re a girl.’ Remember the boy who said she’d always be weak? She showed him just how weak her punch was, and for some reason he still ran off crying. Her older self thoroughly approves.
The school years
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