Seriously, I feel like I just compiled my last “10 things on the 10th” and my reminder popped up on my phone on Monday for the next one! What the?… I actually already had this one written as it came to me not long after I wrote the last one. I’m sure a few of you will know who this gem of a friend of mine is 🙂
10 things a good friend of mine has taught me in the 18 years I have known her:
(These aren’t things she specifically went out of her way to teach me, just things I observed and have really appreciated at the time, and beyond.)
1. Don’t smoke just to be cool – I went through a smoking-while-drinking phase at uni and it gave me the worst smokers cough, not to mention what it was doing to my asthma. But I wanted to try it and I wanted to fit in. She helped me see the light.
2. School is fun – I remember her telling me that her son happily went to school everyday and she asked me if I knew why. My first thought was “because he would get into trouble if he didn’t?” The answer was much more simple: her son was excited about going to school every day because she would tell him, and he would agree, that school is fun. I have always remembered that when talking to the kids about school, and it really does catch on.
3. Tying shoes – another parenting one. Her son, who would have been maybe 5 at the time, came and asked for help tying his shoes and she made a huge deal about praising him for asking for help. Apparently he had been going through a stage of getting upset if he couldn’t do something, instead of asking, so this was real progress. Again, such a small thing, but it really stuck with me.
4. First eyebrow shape – she plucked my eyebrows for the first time and I’ve never gone back. I remember she was so excited to have a “blank canvas” I think were her words.
5. To love my body and how it works and moves – oh boy we went through so many weight gains and losses together in those first 10 years. We ate a lot of chocolate and drank a lot of beer and wine together, and were always looking to drop a few kgs. And although she has been much more successful than me in maintaining a healthy lifestyle in the last 8 years, she really inspires me and encourages to be my best self. Not in a “you’ll feel better if you drop some weight” kind of way, but in a “be confident and comfortable in your own skin. The number isn’t who you are” kind of way.
6. Sex and the City – she totally introduced me to this show, and we used to have a Monday night ritual where I would come over (with chocolate) (and sometimes wine) and watch The Secret Life of Us, followed by Sex and the City, and if I was really rebellious, I’d stay for Six Feet Under. Best Monday night trifecta baby.
7. How to flirt – I remember going out with her one night and told her drunkenly that I wish I could flirt better, because I had absolutely no air of mystery about me (still don’t…) so the following weekend I went over to her house to get ready and we went out for a night of practice. And I got pretty good at it I must say! So much fun 🙂
8. To add a bit of moisturiser when applying my foundation – I watched her do this one time at her place and have done it ever since.
9. Lip gloss can do wonders – she rocks a lip gloss like no one else I know.
10. Yoga and wine go well together – enough said.
SO much love for you babe xxx
