I’m uncertain, that seems to be my thing and always has been. Ever since I can remember I’ve been uncertain about what clothes to wear, which boys to date, whether or not I should quit smoking and generally where I’m going in life. Let’s be honest, we don’t have to have the answers right now but the fact that we’re in our 20’s which is ten years or so closer to our 30’s means we need to have the beginnings of an answer, right? Well I don’t, not at all. The thing is I’m not even one of those airy fairy types who can float through life never knowing or caring where it will take them, I wish I was but I’m not. However, when I come across one of those types I tend to bask in their glory and today was no exception.
My friend Skylar is an airy fairy type and in many ways the reason I love her. She’s never anywhere for long and ever since leaving secondary school, from which she believes she was “freed”, she’s travelled everywhere and done everything, apart from get a job. I hadn’t heard from her for months, since she called to inform me she was heading to Peru with a guy she’d met in Asia. It was for this reason her text today informing me she was back and wanted to meet was pleasantly surprising.
My choice to meet her in my lunch break was stupid. It was stupid because I know she has no regard for work and all through secondary school lunch breaks with her were two things: an excuse to get sushi and never ending. I can’t tell you the amount of times I skipped school to smoke with her while she drew horrifying portraits of people we knew. She claimed herself to be an artists without a vision, I believed she was just simply confused and for her that was ok.
I met her at an apartment in Soho, it wasn’t hers but you wouldn’t know it unless she told you. It was full of her mess, her bags from travel and the things she always kept close to her. She was stood in the middle of it all when I walked in, crouching over her latest project while smoking a cigarette. She looked different, having let her hair grow long she seemed slightly more mature and the over sized glasses, that she swore were prescription, added to that effect.
Upon seeing her I was filled with warmth, she was a part of my past that really only played a part time role in my present. She reminded me of easier times, times when skipping school and smoking was cool and a teachers wrath was your only worry. We greeted each other with a hug after which we discussed everything she’d been doing. I found out she’d been travelling through Asia, had almost adopted a baby and was only here from 3 weeks before heading to Africa to do some voluntary work. I loved her stories and the way she told them, I’d missed her chain smoking and the way she could never give you her undivided attention when a pen and sketch pad was near. And then she asked me what I’d been doing. As I began to tell her my stories about work and the recent awful relationship choices a weird feeling came over me, something I now believe I’d subconsciously been choosing to supress, unhappiness. I was unhappy, really unhappy.
“Nothing” I said. And then I did something, something I don’t tend to do in front of anyone. Something I only felt safe doing in that apartment with the comfort of my old friend. I cried.
I’m not entirely sure what I was feeling maybe work, Liam, my bank and life had gotten on top of me. I wasn’t entirely sure. But I was glad Skylar was there. And when I’d finished with that particular moment she was still there.
“So where are we going for Sushi?” She said, lighting a cigarette and handing it to me.
“I have to work” I said, unconvincingly.
“Don’t we all” She said, grabbing her purse and heading to the door.
Today my lunch break lasted precisely four hours, I’ll deal with the wrath tomorrow. I guess today I needed three things: sushi, a never ending lunch break and a friend.
The 20 Somethings 