A List of Fond Memories

This post is going to be a little different, in that I’m not going to give any reasoning or explanation for what I write. I guess it’s quite a personal post, but I hope that by not giving depth to these memories, perhaps you as the reader can relate to some in your own personal way. Some of my fondest memories are just chilling with certain people at certain times and so I’ve not written those as it’s just a bit nothing/boring. Enjoy!

• My friend falling in a lake fully clothed after tempting fate climbing a tree which hung over the water.
• Seeing Lorde with my Mum.
• Dancing/ laughing a lot to Grimes at a Spanish music festival.
• Playing football with my Grandad in his garden.
• My friend getting super drunk at Reading festival in the space of 15 minutes and crawling hands and knees through stinging nettles, urine and worse.
• Trekking up a mountain with my Dad in Spain.
• The first time I saw Arcade Fire live.
• Passing my driving test.
• Running through a Spanish forest drunk, stopping to take photos all the time.
• A particular visit to a water park in Turkey.
• First being allowed into town with my friends and spending money on stupid stuff like joke cigarettes.
• Seeing Blink 182 live and being convinced I’d never see a gig as good again.
• Going to a dinosaur themed theme park sort of place.
• Dancing to Hall and Oates ‘You make my dreams come true’ in our Air Bnb.
• One particular night at Rawreth skate park.
• Entering my first skate competition.
• Camping at the park/ then-girlfriend’s garden with my friends.
• A weekend where extended family etc rented a huge cottage and we all stayed there.
• Coming runner up in my first tennis tournament.
• Having a barbecue at the park with my friends which ended in an ice cube fight.
• Performing a magic act (terribly) at my primary school talent show with my friend.
• Singing a song at the year 6 leavers assembly, with the same friend. (Again, terribly)
• My first boy/girl sleepover+ first time trying alcohol. (Completely innocent.)
• Navigating my way from Eindhoven to Nijmegen entirely alone with no internet or knowledge of the Dutch language.
• A Christmas photo-shoot in Maastricht.
• My first time in Amsterdam.
• My whole trip to Stockholm.
• Seeing Everything Everything with my sister— I should say, I don’t really do a lot with my sister, but we have great times doing boring stuff like playing Scrabble or just chatting and I can’t leave her out this post.

I’m sure there’s loads more but on the spot right now I’ve drawn a blank!

One thing I’ve realised whilst writing this is the importance of other people. Like, hardly any of these fond memories only include myself and no-one else. That’s kind of mad, because I always think I’m really good at being alone. It’s also weird to think that memories which I’m pretty fond of might mean nothing to someone else who was there at the time. But that’s okay. There’s a line in a song I like which goes ‘Nothing gets better than memories, when all you have are memories for friends.’ By no means am I saying I have no friends bla bla bla, but I definitely think memories are kind of like friends in a way, but friends that don’t change over time. I’m kind of waffling but I hope you understand me.

Thanks so much for reading such a personal post, I hope you enjoyed it and maybe feel like you know me better now!