We have time

I take the 133 bus from London Bridge to head home back to South London, the sky is dappled with cloud like dark blue denim fraying at the knee, and London Bridge is sprawling with coat clad commuters heading home from work. Lights from the tall buildings shimmer on the Thames and red and white headlights surround me in the dwindling ends of rush hour. The pan simmers after the boil. I imagine it’s pretty noisy, but my headphones are in and I’m listening to the gentle jazz and slow grooves of She & Him in my own head space, accompanied by strangers on a busy bus which would usually annoy me, but right now, I’m content with the glittery view of central London in the dark through the window. It’s also not raining so I’m happy.

It’s funny how those subtle changes, like the shifting of seasonal weather, playlists, places you go to, or scenes and people that happen to you create these little margins between time as it passes swiftly beneath you, and sometimes you don’t find yourself recognising the chapter that's passed until you’re fully immersed in the next.

Primrose Hill, London. Lauren Hurrell.

We head into my favourite time of year, the prettiest time in a city, in my opinion, and everything seems heightened all of a sudden. Winter closes in on us, but I invite it happily. Thick jumper season. I’m aware that I have the tendency to find sentimental value in many things, but I am an English and film student; nostalgia is my favourite aesthetic. I think of my presence in this moment, and how much of a part of it I am, not thinking about the course work I haven’t done, or when my next work shift is, or what I’m going to do with my life after uni, not thinking about anything but just being here. Participating.

I suppose this is a (nostalgic) return to the blogpost I wrote around this time two years ago, when I first moved to London, and I felt more inspired and excited than I ever had done. That feeling hasn’t worn off. Nearing towards the flipside, suddenly thrust into my final year of my degree, the ceasefire I felt on that bus journey ironically kicks my brain into reflecting on everything that’s happened between then and now, both to me, to the people I know, to things that have happened in the world, good and bad, I realise how important it all feels, even if it didn’t seem that important at the time. In hindsight, I realise how much younger I was then, two years ago, compared to now.

That said, I have moments now when I feel like I’m actually maybe finally an adult… a feeling which sometimes comes crashing down with some turn of events to make me realise we are still very young, and sometimes that is the most reassuring feeling we could ask for. We have time. 

I’m often confused by a fear of finality that many people have, that if something doesn’t work out or doesn’t happen, it’s never going to happen again, or you’re somehow falling behind. If something didn’t work out, it’s either not the right time, or it wasn’t supposed to be, and made some room for something else to fill it, whatever that is. That’s always my point of resilience to return to if things feel fragile, hopeless, incomplete, confusing.

    Primrose Hill, London. Lauren Hurrell.

I will cling to every moment that happens this year, new and old places and seeing the faces that have become so familiar to me now since that day I walked into a lecture and didn’t know a single face, only to walk out of that lecture into a city where I only had acquaintances. They're oblivious to the unspoken, reassuring comfort they bring me.

This year is the last part for this chapter, the final product of what the past two years have been working towards. Time teaches me that we can make anywhere feel like home if we persevere with it and grow into it, make it work for ourselves. I think we can be a little hard on ourselves by constantly prioritising what we feel we have to be doing, rather than what we want to be doing, or worrying about how things should feel, when no one really has a clue what the answer is. If we could just make a little time every day to remember that, we can push against time a little bit. If we can be confident enough to pursue something in the moment, whatever it is, there leaves no time for regret, or feeling like we didn’t get the best from something. We have time, and if we don’t take it all in through every sense as it comes, it’ll disappear in a snap. 

Turn To White - She & Him