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Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Do you ever wish your younger self could have known the things you know now?
It’s funny: the older I get, the more I wish I had a wiser head on my younger shoulders.
But the truth is, if someone had told me in my twenties to find happiness in the small things, in simple living, I wouldn’t have listened. Back then I wanted a fast-paced life. And that involved heavy drinking, late nights, socialising, buying clothes. Anything to distract myself.
I chased people who were not good for me. They were people who were exciting and maybe a bit dangerous. People who lived on the edge. It felt thrilling to be around them. I couldn’t get enough. I wanted more and more. But now I know what I was addicted to was the fact I was feeling anything at all.
Today I know that happiness is not in the places I once believed it to be. It’s in the small moments: When my dog stays still long enough for me to cuddle her; the sound of grass rustling in the breeze; laughing with friends.
#3 on the list of things my mother should have told me: Joy is found in snowflakes
On a Friday night in mid-January, in the depths of a Yorkshire winter, I am perched on the edge of a brown velour sofa drinking red wine in silence. The four white walls of a room where everything was in reaching distance amplified that silence, and the two square windows that hovered close to the ceiling looked smaller that day.
Yorkshire winters can last a lifetime, the clouds casting their iron net from November until May.
In truth, half of my whole world was that Tetris block flat slotted above a well-known pizza chain. The other half was a call centre I worked at a ten minute walk away - but only if you walked at a pace that made your calves scream and your face melt.
I’d bounce back and forth between the pillars of my life in a simple routine I found comforting. My whole life was distilled into ten minutes on foot. There was no need for a car or to jostle for a space on public transport. There was no need to think or spend time working out plans. Mostly I’d just turn up places when I felt like it.
The money I made from my job at the call centre was just enough to cover the rent, bills and essentials, but it was not enough for the extras – the meals out at restaurants that made me feel as though I was living rather than existing; the clothes I bought at shops that changed their cycles more often than you could keep up with; the city breaks that proved to others I must be doing well despite my poor finances.
There on the brown velour sofa I washed back wine faster than my body could handle. I’ve never been a fast drinker and with each pull of the bottle my body rejected the vinegary liquid. I never did figure out if it was bad wine or just that I didn’t like wine. But anyway I forced it down my throat with face spasms and shudders. I had to finish the bottle before I could leave my flat because I had to become someone else – a drunk someone else. The sober me would not do. She was not interesting enough or funny enough, couldn’t think of enough witty things to say.
I had plans to meet a man I was trying to impress, who would only ever meet with me after 11pm when his girlfriend was away or busy. We were one another’s secret. It was a fact I knew with certainty: he would never call me girlfriend material. But that didn’t stop me from chasing an unattainable man for the next 12 months, or the heartbreak that would follow.
Out on the pavement I pulled the edges of my coat tight around my body. As I lifted my head I saw the white curl of a snowflake drifting across the sky. Caught somewhere in the lull between the evening crowd and the late night ravers, it moved as though it had nowhere to be. I followed its course until it blended with more flakes that now canvassed the sky.
Snow melted into my hair, my skin, my neck. And for once I didn’t run for cover. I welcomed the feeling against my flushed face, the fuzzy edges of the snowflakes tickling my eyelids and brushing my cheek. With my coat now loose around my sides, my shoulders relaxed, my heart open and facing the sky, I dared to stick out my tongue, forgetting to check if anyone was watching.