Sorry I'm Late - I fell in love too young

Did you, too? Anyway, it's autumn and we have cinnamon candles

A famous author came into the bookshop today and we all had to pretend we didn’t know who he was. He lives nearby and we have several of his books on our shelves, some with his actual face on them, and yet when he wants to order a book in to buy, we have to ask, completely straight-faced, “What’s your last name? Uh huh. And first name?” and then remain blank-faced. It is the best acting I have ever done in my life.

Apparently, a long time ago, a former bookseller here asked for a selfie with him and he (politely) refused and then he didn’t come into the bookshop for years, so now we must be extra careful around him.

This is in contrast to another famous author who came in recently. He wanted to autograph his books and a customer on her way out overheard and said, “Oh, you wrote a book! Good for you!” and then she left, the door shutting behind her.

It was like someone saying “Oh, you wrote a little song! Adorable!” to Paul Simon and then slamming the door, leaving Paul Simon fuming inside. With me. I did not know what to do, but I needed to make sure that he knew that I knew who he was. I panicked and said, “Oh, it’s YOU! YOU! You wrote that…thing!!! That thing that I love!!”

Anyway, it’s hard to get it right when it comes to the famous.

It is my first autumn working at the bookshop (I started working here in January). We have a coffee machine here, so we have ordered in fancy pumpkin spice syrup and we have cursive orange lettering on the black A-board sign out front. I wore an oversized navy cardigan and jeans to work last week because leaves were blowing everywhere and there was finally a chill in the London air. The cinnamon candles are out.

Cara was working today. Cara is 22 and looks like Alexa Chung, if Alexa Chung only wore cargo pants and baggy black t-shirts. She has that cool haircut and her cat-like eyes and Cara’s also tall, so when she sits, she can cross her legs over about seven times. She only wears mascara and that’s all she needs because, let me reiterate, she is 22.

Sometimes I can’t believe Cara is only 22. A baby. A child. A baby-child. I find myself exclaiming, “You are SO YOUNG! You are a baby!!!” and she laughs and pretends to fake cry “wah” with exaggerated wringing hands.

Rebecca was also working today. She has long dark wavy hair and loves books so much that on her off days, she visits other indie bookshops. She is crafty, she writes poems, and she cuddles every single dog who comes into our shop.

The most shocking discovery I made about them, these twenty-somethings, is that Rebecca and Cara have never seen a single episode of GIRLS. I am in my 30s and I have never felt older in my life.

I find myself mothering them. Not because I want to, but when you are left with stray kittens about to scurry across a busy road, you scoop them into your arms before you know what you’re doing. You give them water and brush them and suddenly say out loud, realising, “Wait, so I have to be the adult here?!”

I say to them, “What do you mean you don’t wash your fruit?” and text them late at night, “Did you remember to take your B12 and iron?” (Cara is a vegan and Rebecca a vegetarian.)

When Cara forgets to drink water, yet makes a cup of coffee that is FOUR espresso shots and no milk, I want to cup her face in my hands and say, “No. No no no no no no no.” I pester Cara and Rebecca to make appointments at the GP and to go to the dentist. To confront their rude flatmates. I beg them not to text their exes. I give them my password to a streaming service and say, “Please watch GIRLS. Go. Now.”

Cara and I often work together. We try to find common ground and fail. She says “slay” often and non-ironically and when I tell her I need a break to pee and can she cover the till, she yells, “Go piss, girl!!!” which is apparently a meme from the Gossip Girl opening montage, something I did not know for months of her yelling this at me. I just thought all twenty-somethings encouraged each other with, “Go piss, girl!”

Even so, it was easy to bond with my younger colleagues, because we all love reading books and while the bookshop doesn’t have a policy per se about their hiring process, it is telling that there are five of us and we are all very much introvert brunettes who know the names of at least two types of antidepressants off the top of our heads.

I remember that I had only met Rebecca, the 24-year-old, a handful of times but she was open with me immediately. We were sitting at the table in the café part of our bookshop and she was crying, angrily. She had just been broken up with by a guy she really liked but had only gone on three dates with.

“You’re so lucky you’re married!!” Rebecca wailed. “I am so sick of this! I just want my PERSON to spend the rest of my life with and just be done!”

I nodded.

“Tell me! How old were you before you met your husband? I need to know that I still have time!!” she said.

I paused.

“It doesn’t work like that!”

“How old were you?”

“Twenty-four…?”

Rebecca howled.

“But it was too young, honestly! He’s the one for me but sometimes I think we met far too young!”

It was too late. Rebecca had dried her tears and stood up to make a cup of tea.

One of the first arguments my then- fiancé, now-husband Sam and I once had was when we were watching The Adjustment Bureau (starring Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, a bunch of men in suits and hats, Roger from Mad Men). Matt Damon and Emily Blunt keep falling in love with each other, but “the adjustment bureau,” a government department / Zeus / God (unclear), keeps trying to keep them apart. Why? Because if they end up together, then Matt Damon will not fulfill his destiny of becoming….the President of the United States and Emily Blunt will not fulfill her destiny of becoming… a world-class dancer (and choreographer…!(?)).

“That’s us,” I had said to my husband.

“What the fuck?” he had said.

My comment had betrayed that I felt I had given up something by moving to London for him, a man. A very excellent British man that I loved, but still, a man. I had been a TV reporter in China and now what was I going to be in the United Kingdom, a place with three cereal options and one of them is Weetabix.

Sam and I met when we were 24 and we got married when I was 27, because we were in love. Which was great.

But now I was no longer going to be a world-class dancer (and choreographer!!!).

Of course, we’ll never know what would have happened if we hadn’t met or married so young. Things actually turned out okay (I mean, I do love him, so we had a good chance).

I think I had some preconceived notion that when you are chasing your dream career, you need to be single so that you can spend your late nights alone writing until dawn and coming up with brilliant new ideas while out sailing to Tahiti with exciting new strangers.

At least I thought this until I read an interview with an author - I can’t remember if it was Margaret Atwood or Alice Munro, but I think it was one of them (please correct me in the comments if you remember this, too) - where they said they were happy to have married at a relatively young age so that they could be done and settled with that part of their life and just get on with their work.

Either way, what would the alternative option have been for me? Just like you can’t choose who you fall in love with, you also can’t choose when you fall in love with them. And for us, that was summer in Beijing, at our expat magazine’s office, eating piping hot dumplings and thinking, “This is just gonna be a fun summer fling.”

Do you think Matt Damon and Emily Blunt are still in love and doing okay, too?

I was reminded of all of this again because a new bookseller was hired at the bookshop and it was… a man! The first man. Though he was brunette and liked books, so really, not so different from us.

Walter has glasses and is very sweet and funny. He was dating the daughter of a very famous author (not either of the ones above), which we all found very exciting. And until one day, he wasn’t.

“We’re in the process of breaking up,” Walter said one day, sadly. They has been together for ten years, but she wanted to know what it was like to date other people.

She had never dated anyone but him as an adult. They met when they were 22.

“Do you ever feel like you met her too young and if you could go back, you would like to meet her NOW for the first time?” I asked him.

“That’s exactly how I feel,” Walter said. They were soulmates, but they had just met too young, and now being together seemed impossible.

“Why did I have to meet her when I was 22 instead of 32?”

When he says this, I want to cry. I want to say something wise like, “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all blah blah blah…plus I think we have some stale pastries from next door,” but instead turn over the copy of his ex’s mother’s book that is on the front table in the bookshop.

We sell a copy of a book written by the famous author - the mother of Walter’s ex-girlfriend - at least once a week, so we’re often ordering more copies of her books in. When Walter has to unpack them or adjust them on the bookshop table, he laughs slightly bitterly.

It’s hard to get it right even when you’re merely close to famous people.

Disappointingly, Rebecca and Walter are not in love, though I try to suggest it to each of them when we’re alone – as if we are living in an actual romantic comedy, instead of a real bookshop in London.

The other day, while working another shift with Cara (the 22-year-old 90s grunge version of Alexa Chung), I ask her tentatively if she had ever heard of Gilmore Girls. I assumed the answer would be no because it premiered a year before Cara was even born.

“Omigod I LOVE Gilmore Girls! It’s almost time to re-watch it again because autumn is nearly here!” Cara said.

In that moment, looking at her luminous skin, I do some math and realise that Cara and I have exactly the same age gap as Rory and Lorelai in Gilmore Girls. I really could be her mother.

Cara is also in love. She has a long-distance girlfriend, who lives in Paris. I try not to pry, but of course I want to (I am her Lorelai, after all). And when she tells me she’s deeply in love with this woman in Paris, what am I supposed to say?

Do I stare into her big cat-like eyes and say, “You’ve met the love of your life too soon.” Of course not.

I say, “Please drink more water. And then? Then, go piss girl.”

You can read more of my writing by checking out my book, “Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come: One Introvert’s Year of Saying Yes.” (The UK version is “Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come: An Introvert’s Year of Living Dangerously).

It’s about the year I spent: talking to strangers, performing stand-up comedy, travelling solo, trying out improv, going on friend dates and doing a bunch of extrovert-y things.  It’s about being an introvert and trying to extrovert for a full year. I interview brilliant people throughout the book who guide me through these nightmares.

It’s sold more than 140,000 copies, nearly entirely by word-of-mouth and I am so grateful to all of my readers.

Reviews for Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come

“I loved it! It’s such a wonderful title, and the book lives up to it’ Nigella Lawson 

‘In a world of self-care and nights in, this book will inspire and remind you to do some things that scare you every so often.’ Emma Gannon

‘Hilarious, unexpected and ultimately life-affirming.’ Will Storr

‘Funny, emotional and deeply inspiring, this is perfect for anyone wanting to break out of their comfort zone’  Heat

‘Beautifully written and so funny! I related to it A LOT’ – Emma Jane Unsworth

‘Relatable, moving and fantastically funny’ – Rhik Samadder

‘Tender, courageous and extremely funny, this book will make us all braver.’ Daisy Buchanan

‘A chronicle of Pan’s hilarious and painful year of being an extrovert.’ Stylist

‘Excellent, warm, hilarious.’ Nikesh Shukla

‘You WILL laugh and laugh while reading this.’ Sun

“Very funny, very smart” Liberty Hardy