My sixteen-year-old self would have very little patience for anyone’s advice. And, given that those who are most like ourselves are those who most annoy us, I should imagine the my younger self would roll her eyes and sigh at having to listen to a lecture from me on how to and how not to be.

Being older, and knowing that I know more than sixteen-year-old me, I would push on with the dispensing of advice, and I would try to tell her to push a little harder, and to be less distracted by trivia. She won’t believe it, of course, but I’ll try anyway to tell her that she won’t even remember the name of that boy who just broke her heart, or the name of that bitchy girl who excluded her from an inner circle of future nobodies. She won’t believe me when I tell her that creativity is a muscle that needs to be exercised every day, otherwise it atrophies, and that she is a more talented writer and artist and better dancer than she gives herself credit for. I would try to tell her that if she just applied herself, if only for a very tiny little while every day, she could achieve great things. If she just believed in herself, no matter what good, solid advice her parents tried to give her from their own fearful, small-world point of view, she would grow wings and fly.

She will think me mad, though, an interfering old busybody who understands nothing. And that’s the way it should be, I suppose. The young should be foolish, headstrong, impulsive, completely lacking in focus, fully confident in their know-it-all-ness. How else are they to make mistakes, stumble and fall, pick themselves up again, and experience – and learn from – life?

That impulsive, stubborn, heart-on-her-sleeve, diary-keeping, soppy poetry-writing girl became me. If she didn’t exist, then nor would I. And then I wouldn’t be able to hand out such very good advice.

It's a bit of a cheat - I couldn't stick to ten lines. I had never considered writing a poem about this irritating person - but it was a very good idea (if not a very good poem!).

You live your life invisibly, but not quietly, just beyond the garden wall
where all your sounds and smells can reach me,
invade my sleep, grate against my nerves.
Sounds of a car engine, spluttering and choking, being turned over … and over,
power tools, sandpaper against wood, voices talking, talking, talking in the dark.
Rustling in the garden in the middle of the night … Why?
Endless renovating,
the gritty scrape of steel spade against stone, turning over wet cement.
Acrid tentacles of cigarette smoke yanking me from my sleep.
Oh, and the water you waste … the river that flows from under your gate,
over the pavement, into the gutter, down the hill …
precious water in a dry country sent to sewage and out to sea …
I wish you would go with it.

Tea. Earl Grey tea. How weird is that? I don't have a comfort food. And in realising this, I realised a flood of other things about myself and my relationship with food.

Oh my word! I have just opened up a huge, dark room full of sensors! Ghosts of angry, finger-wagging prescriptive grown-ups wearing grown-up clothes, stiff, grown-up hairstyles and shiny, pointy shoes come rushing out of the darkness, their mouths loudly jabbering soundless words at me. The ability to free-write vanishes. The internal editor grabs hold of my wrists, forces my fingers to the delete button, silences my brain, and holds me mute and paralysed as I stare at the monitor as if it is the light of an oncoming train.

As a kid, I didn't have much of an appetite, and so I was waif-like, bony and pale. Aunts and nosy neighbours would feign concern and interest, and ask if I were ill. I think my mother must have taken this as an attack on her ability to nurture. Through my skinniness was accusing her of being a bad mother.

And so, probably in self-defense, she would start the day sitting on the edge of my bed, holding a bowl of steaming oats floating in milk in the one hand and, with the other hand, guiding a spoon heavy with the weight of the grey glue towards my mouth. I was already six or seven years old, not a baby anymore, and my mother was spoon feeding porridge into my face, just to make sure that I ate something before I went to school. I hated the porridge, I hated the milk, I hated the crunch of the sugar through the slimy saltiness of the gloop. Even now, forty years later, the sight of porridge still makes me want to gag.

She spoon fed fried egg into my face, stew, cabbage ... Every mealtime was a battle of wills. Her willing me to eat, me willing my mouth to stay closed. Sometimes she would read to me while I eat, or tell me stories. I must have driven her nuts.

And then came my teenage years, when I was still skinny while the other girls were filling out. All I wanted was to be fat. But be careful what you ask for ... I gained weight in my early twenties ... and food was the enemy again. Except this time I had an appetite - a really good one - and had to battle to stay away from food.

By my mid- to late twenties I managed to get it together. I stopped the yo-yo dieting, stopped denying myself foods that I wanted to eat, and just ate what I wanted, when I wanted, until I felt satisfied. I ate when I was hungry and not when I wasn't. Food became what it is meant to be: fuel for the body, something that I control, not something that controls me. My body weight stabilised and, along with it, that nauseating emotional roller coaster ride of happy and deserving of love and friendship when thin, revolting and worthless when fat.

I love cooking, I love eating out and I enjoy interesting, well-prepared meals, but there is no one food that I reach for when I feel stressed or tired or sad.

But Mr Earl Grey. Ah. Mr Grey. There is comfort in the ritual of boiling the kettle, choosing my favourite mug (yes, yes, yes - a porcelain teacup would be more appropriate, but you can't fit enough tea into it!), rinsing it out with hot water to warm it so that the tea stays warm, brewing the tea for just the right amount of time, adding one spoon of sugar (at just the right level), stirring it until all the sugar has dissolved ... lifting the mug and breathing in that Bergamot aroma ... Aaah. And then that first sip ... that sip that takes the warm, fragrant, sweet liquid onto the tongue and down the throat. And then something switches. Everything slows down just a notch. That deadline can wait, I can cope with my teenager's latest heartbreak and my young one's latest mean teacher. The cat vomit on the kelim can be cleaned a bit later, and the ache in my lower back blunts its bite a little.

Yes. Earl Grey tea will have to be my comfort food. I think I'll go and make another cup right now.