#personal journal entry

You know it's going to be a good day when the sun is out, there's a sense of calm in the air, and you can actually be bothered to make an effort with your appearance. Okay, the appearance one serves no purpose to anyone but myself (and I mean that literally! No one outside cares what you look like!) but it's nice when you want to make an effort and you feel good about it. And something I want to do this year is make more of an effort to stray away from my go-to outfits when I'm going out. Like, wear the wardrobe girl, you collected it, show it off to the world. And what better day to go for a coffee with a friend than one with the sun out and some personal confidence?

As I approach thirty (and beyond) I realise how much I truly appreciate having days to make these minimal but lovely plans with friends. One of my favourite things is to take a stroll in the sun, grab a coffee and have a good old catch up. And this day was no different. When I met up with my friend we did have a little giggle about the fact that we were so juxtaposed against each other (me in a bright outfit and her in a all black outfit) and how that was selected against the weather too. It doesn't happen very often. An all black outfit is a comfort zone for me too, but I have so much colour in my wardrobe and I want to explore it more, and take it out too. The street is my runway this year and I am going to utilise it.

As we entered the cafe for a coffee and a little sweet treat, we started to chat and talk the day away. There is nothing nicer than it feeling so easy to be in someone's company and to feel at ease with them. One of my comfort smells(?) has to be the smell of fresh coffee in a coffee shop. I'm not actually much of a coffee drinker, but it really does bring me comfort and has to be on the list for one of my favourites. Sitting down at the table I was instantly drawn to the cakes on display. Six different options of fruit, chocolate and cream. I already knew which one I had my eyes on... What looked to be a fresh cream sponge with strawberry jam on top. It wasn't. In fact all the elements of what I thought this cake was were all completely different in reality, and were not to my taste but the visual aesthetics were there for sure. I don't know what it says about me but I couldn't leave the cake on the table, which would have gave the impression to the owner that I didn't enjoy the cake. (This is a small business keep in mind, and there was nothing wrong with the confectionary itself, it was definitely a personal taste issue. And I already sort of knew this because... I don't like jam. So I already knew it wouldn't be completely to my taste). So I asked to take it away with me. I didn't leave the uneaten part behind for them to clear up. I also didn't eat it. I placed it in one of the bins on the high street but they won't know that and there day continued without having to question why the cake was uneaten. Right?

The next stop on our little outing was for food. (Why we thought it made sense to go for coffee and cake before food, especially when neither of us had eaten prior I'm not sure) Again, it was just a small bite to eat and something simple. But the memory of this comes back to previous points I have made in other posts, and the new purpose of this blog as a whole, because whilst the food was simple and the food place was nothing special, the company was great and the atmosphere even better. When we sat down at one of the many empty tables, because the rest of the dinner time goers had decided to sit outside in the glorious sunshine, we noticed that the table in the corner closest to where we were sat were celebrating a birthday. And not just any birthday but a 90th birthday. A group of around 8 men had made the time and effort to come out to celebrate their friend turning 90 years old.

This felt pretty significant because not only is 90 a huge milestone, but me and this friend had been talking about the fact I turn 30 this year, and Twinni will be turning 10 this year too. It felt like a come together of a whole lot of significant eras. The different stages merging within the atmosphere and what the significance of that actually is. These milestones will keep coming, and going, but they are always present. If not with ourselves then with others. And these milestones aren't just limited to birthdays they can be anything and anywhere. There is a certain comfort that has come with accepting the turning thirty milestone, because whilst nothing has really changed in my life, I have lost that fear of feeling like I'm running out of time, and that fear that I should have found my true calling by now. And this was something else me and my friend spoke about. It's like turning thirty has gotten rid of all the doom I felt in my twenties about feeling like I had to have everything figured out, and that if this wasn't the case for me then I was falling behind on the imaginary timeline we all are walking through.

I don't feel a sense of doom now when I think about what I want to do. And I also don't feel panic when I realise that I still don't know what that thing is. I feel like I was blessed and cursed when I was given a personality that loves everything so deeply, that one singular thing will never make sense to me in my own head. It will never make sense to me that other people can pick one thing and go with it for the rest of their lives. But that's okay. That works for them. But I am not them. And they are not me.