I heard my own vows through the convent wall

Dear Delyara, I have been a nun for forty-eight years. This morning, a young woman made her first vows in the chapel. I stood behind the wooden screen because my knees no longer allow me to process with the others. When she promised poverty, chastity, and obedience, I heard my own twenty-two-year-old voice inside hers. I remembered the certainty I carried then, how clean the future looked when arranged into sacred words. My life has held service, friendship, prayer, and real joy. It has also held questions I never expected: the child I might have had, the woman I once loved before I had language for it, the anger I buried because obedience was considered holier than honesty. After the ceremony, the young sister hugged me and asked whether I had any advice. I told her to leave room for God to become larger than the promises she currently understands. She thanked me as if I had offered wisdom. Perhaps I had. Perhaps I was warning her. Tonight, the convent is quiet, and I keep hearing my own vows as though the walls recorded them. I do not regret my life. I also no longer believe regret is the only honest measure of whether another life was possible.