Reputations and Nostalgia

I'll always think of Danny being a drinking machine, who once pierced his buttocks together (100% genuine story there folks) a man who had that many drunken injuries that it was hard to keep up with them, I can't think of him as a responsible adult with a job that requires him not to be hungover like he was back then. Steph will always be in my head the mad ginger girl who sings Blazing Squad songs at the top of her voice and not the mother of two beautiful children and the creator of a Busby Babes, an infant first aid course giver. Charlene will always be the one who was getting drunk down the Town Hall on a Friday night wearing far to much makeup and not the spiritual guru, mother of two and podcaster that she is today, (sidenote make sure you check out Ramble Time where ever you listen to your podcasts). 

I could go on here listing people who have been in my life at various points. One thing about being in my industry and being a social animal back in the day is that I know a lot of people. Even during my latest return to Luton I bumped into someone I haven't seen face to face in at least 18 years and straight away they told me how they remembered my in the famous purple Liquid puffa jacket and that they remembered how I used to go round pouring shots of Corkys into their mouths on a Friday night. They told me it was some of the best times of  there life, they had no real reasonability's, nothing to tie them down. I remembered him and his group vaguely, you have to remember that this was over 20 years ago! Always there in there Tommy Hilfiger shirts, wearing far to much aftershave, trying every weekend to get lucky and more often that not leaving alone. I asked him what he was up to these days and he shocked me saying he was a self employed accountant. Proof of that line coming true, I would never have imagined him doing something like that, it goes to show that you can never judge a book by it's cover.

It made me think of those random people who made very brief interludes into my life, people like Johnson, a true Londoner who always used to come round my flat in my first year at Uni often wearing nothing but a hoodie and a towel wrapped around himself. Or Shay who I once saw have an accident in Luton Bus Station pretend to leave his details on a scrap of paper, but in reality had just left a random number and a sorry. Alexis, the girl who lived in a block of flat opposite me when I lived in Milliner's Way and we posted notes to each other in our windows inviting each other round for coffee but never doing it. Turan who used to drive us to KFC in Bury Park before any big drinking session so we could line our stomachs with greasy fried chicken. Sinbad who once got stopped by the police near the A1 sex shop and got told he looked a lot like Gary Barlow. Candice who taught me the dance moves to SClub7's big hit Reach. Milena who I once walked 3 1/2 miles back to her house because we didn't have any money for a taxi only to find a £10 note in the bottom of her bag when she fished her keys out of it. Owen who kept us up all night during the world cup 2002 in Japan before the Germany vs Ireland game by forcing us to play frisbee in the dark. 

These little memories make me chuckle, and sometimes they'll just randomly pop into my head and that'll lead me onto thinking about what these people are doing now. I hope they are all doing ok and that life has treated them well.

So what's this post about, a little of a nostalgia for me, resurrecting memories of people and things we did, who knows I might need them when I'm older and loose my mind! It's a little more than that though, it's a thought, that life is made up of little moments and people no matter how briefly they are in your life can leave an impression for the better or worse, but they all add up to where you are in life at that moment. Reputations can be earnt and lost, perceptions can change, but you've got to work at it. I'm not the borderline alcoholic that I used to be at university, I'm not the football obsessed teenager whose whole life revolved around the game. I'm not the man who let himself go when he was married. I'm a new me that's still emerging from there shell, where it ends up, who knows, but I'm having fun getting there.  

I started this entry with a line from a film and I'm going to end it with one as well Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.