I’m in Chicago for the CEO Experience, teaching for the next two days. Chicago is home sweet home — and the memories come flooding back the second I land. It’s nostalgic every single time. I still can’t believe it’s been five years since I moved.
Before the teaching starts, I do what I always do when I’m back. I head to my old gym. I start walking the track.
And as I walk — looking out the window, half in my own head — I suddenly see a young woman sprint past me. She looks familiar. She comes around a second time. And I realize.
It’s me. Twenty years ago.
A strong young woman, filled with sense and purpose. She’s here for boot camp before her wedding.
I grab her wrist as she passes. You’re beautiful and strong, I tell her. You’re so resourceful. Such a gunner. You’ve already figured out so much in your life, and you’re going to do amazing things. But enjoy your body. Enjoy those legs. You are in the best shape of your life right now.
Then I let her go.
I keep walking. I think about everything she’s about to accomplish — everything she doesn’t know yet. She comes around again, and I grab her a second time.
Don’t sweat the small stuff, I tell her. You’re going to be an awesome dentist. A wonderful mom. A great entrepreneur — but don’t doubt yourself, okay? Because you will doubt yourself. Imposter syndrome is going to try to move in and stay a while. Don’t let it get to you. You’re going to go through some hard stuff. And you’re going to have beautiful kids. And one day, you’re going to leave Chicago.
And then I remember the rest of it.
Greg. Our instructor — a former Army drill sergeant, and exactly as merciful as that sounds. And Colleen and Dustin, the two friends I made in that class, for the simple and undeniable reason that the three of us were the most unathletic people in the room. You find each other. You just do.
One day somebody asked Greg if we could have music. He raised one brow and scoffed.
There’s no music in boot camp. We laughed and complained – but Greg did deliver on results!
We all eventually got married. We all had kids. And then their kids became my patients — sitting in my chair, in my practice, years after the three of us were gasping at the back of a gym class together.
Who knew boot camp would give me friendships that deep?
This reflection came on so suddenly, so without warning, that it made my heart tickle.
In my 30s, I was building — a marriage, a career, a body that could run laps I can’t run the same way now, friendships I had no idea I was building at all. I just turned 50 this year. And now I’m the one lapping the memory of her, grabbing her wrist, trying to hand her twenty years of hindsight in two sentences before she runs off again.
Here’s what it made me say to myself, standing there on that track: you’re a warrior, and you always were. You just didn’t know it yet.
We don’t usually get to meet our younger selves. But we carry her anyway — in the decisions we made without knowing they’d matter, in the body we pushed without knowing it was borrowed time, in the friendships we stumbled into at the back of a gym class that turned into thirty years. Most days we’re too busy running the practice, running the household, running late, to stop and notice her running laps right alongside us.
If you’re reading this at my age, you know exactly what I’m talking about — that flash of recognition when you catch a glimpse of who you used to be, and you finally understand what she couldn’t.
And if you’re younger — if you’re still on the track, still in the sprint — know this: the warrior is already in you. You don’t have to wait twenty years and a chance encounter with your older self to hear it. Learn to appreciate her now. Enjoy those legs now.
Love yourself now.
Because she’s the best version of you in this moment. Sometimes we’re proud of her and sometimes we’re not — but the moment passes all too soon. There’s always a better version of you coming. It just comes in seasons.
Keep looking.
Many blessings,
Dr. Grace Yum
Founder, Mommy Dentists in Business
