Lemon Slice & Iced Long Blacks

The song doesn't really go with the post, I usually try to align the music, if any, with my words. This time I just wanted to share the song though. I'm currently a little bit hooked on it :)

I passed a few hours yesterday with an old friend. Well, I suppose she is an old friend. It doesn't feel like all that long ago that we were meeting each other for the first time on the bus that we would catch to and from school together for 3 years.

That was back in the days when I aspired to be a certain person - to be composed and put together, to attain a certain kind of job that came with a degree of prestige. I wanted to have a big house and two cars, an expensive corporate wardrobe and an even bigger selection of patterned silk blouses, summer dresses, designer jeans, woollen jackets - you name it. I wanted it all, really. I wanted to work hard and to reward myself accordingly, to be respected and normal. Normal, normal, normal.

And then I think about it, and I feel like it was an age ago - maybe two or three - when we met back on that school bus. I really honestly do. In the almost 6 years since we met, I've turned into a completely different person. In those 6 years, I've experienced contentment & happiness, but also raw physical & emotional pain. I've had great friendships and friendships that have crashed and burnt. I've grown up. And looking back, the idea of all those things that I aspired to be and aspired to have, makes me feel sick.

Now, I aspire to hopefully one day have a tiny run-down little house or apartment to call my own, hopefully. I want a car that will get me from A to B (and fit a cello or surfboard in the back), I want clothes to wear that I feel comfortable in, and I want to work in an area where I'm guaranteed to face opposition but that I am passionate about and that, when I tell other people about it, makes me smile and causes my words to spill over themselves because I want to tell absolutely everything.

And as I was walking with this friend, both of us talking about how we want simplicity and to follow our dreams, even if that means we only just scrape by, I felt content. All of the trials and tribulations of the past 6 years, the silly things that I've done that I wish I could take back, the things that have happened to me that I wished, more than anything, would leave me be, don't seem to matter anymore. These are the things that have made me who I am, and honestly, looking back over those years, they're the things that I've since forgotten or have learned to laugh at. 

Besides, I am beginning to learn that it is the lazy afternoons at the beach and the conversations had over pieces of lemon slice & iced long blacks with an old friend that I will remember. Or the spontaneous trips to the sea with another friend who has proven to be incredible time & time again...

vivian maier via my pinterest