One of my oldest, and closest pals in the world – Mhairi – came down to visit the other day.
There was a bunch of us that all met when we were about 13 years old in a wee tiny village in the middle of nowhere. For whatever reason, that group of disparate folk found a kinship. Fiercely individual, all of us have carved out completely different lives, but that our paths always seem to run back into alignment as time goes on… and then it’s as if nothing’s really changed.
It’s pretty crazy to think that when we first met, we had no real means of getting any cash; seeing each other more than twice a year was almost impossible; and the distance from Glasgow to Inverness may as well have been from one corner of the globe to another.
Perhaps what’s even more ridiculous is just how easy it was to make contact with each other again after so long. There’s something depressing and embarrassing that all it took was a quick phone call to another pal from that era to ask if he’d eaten yet to end up all in a kitchen drinking wine and cooking together.
Oh, and did I mention that Colin’s a doctor now?
Listening to vinyl on occasion is just one of the many bullets used in the hipster-shaming that goes on. I’m blaming Mhairi entirely for this one, as it was her who had a beaten up old record player in her room back when we were kids that made me want one of my own. She’s better at putting the needle in the right place than me though.
It’s always going to be weird at first when you haven’t seem somebody in years. It’s even weirder how much those same people still know you better than anybody else.
