Well, here we are. It’s 2018 and you’re still at pains to become a writer. You’re writing a letter to yourself. Something of a cliché, I know. Let’s roll with it.

For some crazy, unexpected facts. You’ve moved to London (yes – really). You’re still not sure if that makes you a Londoner, or how you’d feel about becoming one. Is that narcissistic? Xenophobic? Your children are ‘Londoners’, after all. But, by and large, it’s just scenery. It doesn’t shift the narrative, and I don’t believe that either of us truly believes that it matters. (Except for free university education. You might want to consider moving the family back to Scotland in time for the free university education).

Speaking of education, you finally really did get a degree. A postgraduate degree. In Victorian Literature. You dilly-dallied the best part of a decade there, booking your own passage from reality; but we got somewhere. Granted, many would argue that it didn’t get you all that far – it didn’t get you a career.

It didn’t get you any money Nadia (and if I’m being brutally honest, you always did undervalue the importance – nay, the sheer supremacy – of cold hard cash). But then that’s not why we did it. I think it did you the world of good. And you gained a husband! I don’t just mean any husband – I mean your husband. The one whose hair you tried to eat when you were 2 before you knew what a husband was. The one you were always meant to have. That was hard won. If we’re counting achievements, that is your greatest.

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For my first piece of advice (and we both know that we’ve never been any good at swallowing advice): you need to start learning how to take it faster, and slower. Speed up your actions, hone your intentions and slow your anxiety way, way down. Take this coin firmly in hand, turn it over till you’re sure of its weight, and pocket it, resolutely, like a treasure; a secret to keep, a truth to tell. Take it out and twirl it between your thumb and fingers like a talisman, then, tightly, tuck it back. That’s yin and yang for you.

Did I mention that you’re a mother now? Listen to me trying to be blasé about the best gift that Allah (SWT) has ever given you. The truth is that I hold those children so close to my heart, selfishly, like a secret that I’m not willing to share – even with you.

I can’t describe it; cradling souls fresh from Jannah, created from pieces of you. Living with them, often for them; offering up parts of your body for sustenance, for play, for comfort, for love. The duty, the wonder, the pain, the joy. Oh, so, so much love. You’ll know it all.

Many years ago, you bookmarked a passage in a book, and it brought great comfort to you. You returned to it many times, and although you don’t remember the book, you remember that hadith, because it was true.

“Allah says: ‘I am just as My slave thinks I am, and I am with him if He remembers Me. If he remembers Me in himself, I too, remember him in Myself; and if he remembers Me in a group of people, I remember him in a group that is better than they; and if he comes one span nearer to Me, I go one cubit nearer to him; and if he comes one cubit nearer to Me, I go a distance of two outstretched arms nearer to him; and if he comes to Me walking, I go to him running.'” (Hadith Qudsi) Sahih Bukhari, 7405

Hold on to that truth Nadia, because it remains paramount and it is the theme of your life.