A Letter to 23

 A Letter to 23

Twenty three flew by. Increasingly I find it difficult to do less. I think it’s in my nature to do the most. Take the longest route, cram everything into a two day opportunity for freedom. It’s the weekend - what can I do? I think it comes from having a job where I tend to spend all my time alone, in the house. So, when I have the opportunity to not be there, I’ll grab hold of it with two hands. 

If I look back on twenty three, I can list off all the places I’ve divided my time. It’s not a short list, or at least, it doesn’t feel like one.

Bristol

Staffordshire

London

Cardiff

Manchester 

Edinburgh

Surrey

Devon

Brighton

Suffolk

Glastonbury

Cambridge

Delph 

Maybe it feels right to structure this year’s letter based on the places I’ve been. The things I’ve done. Last year involved a lot of growth for me. This year has felt like spreading my arms out, taking up space, breathing air deep into the base of my lungs. Filling my shoulders like a helium balloon. Patting myself on the back. Listening to myself. Making space for the person I’m becoming. 

Bristol

I turned twenty three in Bristol. At the time it was a new city. I’d only had a few weeks of streets explored and wind felt on my skin. Now it’s home. I better know the snaking of its roads, the slopes of its hills, its red lights, green lights. Faces have become familiar, journeys shorten as they become second nature, the love that sprouts between two bedrooms has become beautifully expected. I’ve met Bel’s friends, and made some of my own. I’ve learnt where to go for the things I need, and where to find my favourite coffee, sandwiches, and breaths of fresh air. To Abbots Pool, Horfield Common, Clifton Down, St Andrews Park, College Green, Queen’s Square. The snippets of nature in a city of straight lines and right angles. 

Staffordshire

A month after I turned twenty three, my little-big sister married her best friend. Fi and Harry married on 30/10/22 at St John’s in the village we grew up in, and celebrated at Hanbury wedding barn. I welled up as I stepped slowly up the aisle, I sang hymns and watched them hold hands as they sat, newlyweds. I spoke about my sister, read her the words I had written. I looked in Harry’s eyes as I said I was proud to share her with him. I sobbed at the table as my father struggled to get words out. I danced with Harry’s friends as we celebrated their love. 

I’ve been up and down the M5 enough that I know it by heart. I know the services I prefer to stop at, the signs feel like they’re winking at me as I drive under them. I visit my family and look after Ruby. I visited Molly in her groomers, I took my mother out to dinner for her birthday. I sit in their dining room, working from someone else’s home. I return to my favourite gate and make coffee in a kitchen that feels familiar but alien. I sigh as I drive south, back to my nest in Bristol. 

Cardiff 

The drive up the M4 is one I know so well. It doesn’t feel like it takes the full 50 minutes. Of trips to see Becca, Justine, Ella. To cat-sit, work from the cold of Princes St. The familiar creak of the floorboards, the elusive Wally who wants cuddles but not pets. The familiar streets which welcome me back. Roath Park, Bute, Waterloo Gardens. These places I return to as a visitor, an almost-stranger, a completely different person. 

The parties with the dirty dix crew. The outfits, the drinking games, the dressing up. The making of new acquaintances, the late nights, the excitement of something unknown in a familiar place. I spent valentines with my best friend. A roast, makeup, dressing up then dressing down. The coffee from a cafetiere. A slice of home, away from home. 

I graduated after two years. A whole new person, using her degree to write content, to continue reading, to make connections. A red outfit in a black gown. A cap two sizes too big. Faces I didn’t recognise even after three years of lectures and seminars and socials. A day spent reminiscing over the work it took, to recognise the time spent, the hours in the ASSL, the late nights typing up notes and turning pages. 

3 years:

Of grey streets and uneven pavements and bins pecked apart by gulls.

Of red lanyards and a yellow water bottle carried from JP to Sir Martin Evans to Main. 

Of bags brimming with books and a mind bursting with titles, themes, tropes. 

Of walking down streets lined with welsh words and english words and laughter. 

Of nights dripped in orange VKs and days soaked in rain.

Of snowy mornings in Bute and sunny afternoons in Roath.

Of Senghennydd and Rhymney and Florentia. 

Of late nights watching movies on laptops perched on chairs. 

Of crying with laughter, screaming at the tops of lungs, singing till throats hurt. 

Of reading and writing and rewriting and editing. 

Of learning so much more than just the page in front of me. 

Surrey 

My sister and her husband chose first to settle in Surrey. A new place to get to know, to see fond people and cement them there in my mind for a while. New family meant a Christmas somewhere new. Ian and Julia are so warm and inviting. We had a paradise away from home after a car accident which shook my mother and I and destroyed the first car I ever called mine. They nursed us back to health with love and hot baths and home cooking. Laughter and concern and fellowship. 

Fiona and Harry have made a home so beautiful. Small and neat and welcoming. It suits them beautifully and it’s a slice of home every time I visit. My blunt sister with her caring, easily-distracted husband. 

London

The world opened up again and my job starting has led me to board the train to Paddington many times at twenty three. Covent Garden for client meets and fake snow. Hoxton for a work Christmas party filled with cocktail making and bonuses. Camden for three course deliveroo. Bishopsgate for audits and spicy noodles. Maida Vale for emotional breakthroughs and Portobello Road. holding hands and sweaty palms and feeding birds in Hyde Park. High Barnet for city streets and treasure hunts. Marylebone for stacks of plates and rosé. Victoria to fit four of us in a front room after tear-soaked faces at the theatre. It’s pulled me in and I’ve hopped on and off tubes like I know who I am. Crammed in a carriage, airpods in, part of something. A newfound appreciation for somewhere I never thought I would enjoy. 

Cambridge 

I visited in the new year to meet my cousins who live abroad, and meet their new baby. We ate and we drank and the cold bit and it calmed some of the anxiety that had bubbled to the surface from the accident. 

I returned a few months later with work. To stay in a hotel, old and modern all at once, which rose out of the ground. Sturdy and smart. I got a raise, backed myself a little more, spoke up. I explored beautiful streets and ate well. Met a new member of the team, sang Les Misérables between powerpoint presentations. I saw my cousins I’ve not seen in a while, saw their boys who are bigger than the last time. 

Manchester 

I saw my friends from university I haven’t seen all together since before the pandemic. We drank beer in a tent full of plants, dressed up and ordered cocktails in cryptic words, laughed and sang and swayed like we used to. We played and schemed and ran in a crystal maze and drank bubble tea from large straws. I was confronted by how much we’ve grown, how different I feel to the person they met. We’re all growing up.

I visited in the sun. Sticky heat and cancelled trains and a window overlooking the quays. I worked from my cousin’s flat and explored red walkways in the heat. I stood with thousands singing to Harry’s House, my best friend in spots beside me. I let tears fall and smiles break and my voice ring out through songs with so much feeling. 

Devon

I bought a new car. A big one, with red seat belts and a comforting reassurance. I drove it to Devon to see Lucy and Nat and the others from Liverpool university. It was cold and dark and I sang along until I turned up at an old house that glows mint green in the light. I worked from an old table with a patterned tablecloth. I met a whole host of new people, new acquaintances with so much love shared between them. Familiarity and jokes running among them. Shared stories and mannerisms. I connected so simply. A shouted conversation over mahogany. An upstairs and a downstairs. Red wine and books and a purple dress decorated with tiny squares. I fell more in love with my best friend and expanded it to fit hers in too. I came away enamoured of the warmth of people in a cold house. Of stories thrown together and paths intersecting. 

Suffolk

A long drive through relentless rain led me to the east coast. With my work bestie beside me, musicals on the stereo. A week of late nights and early mornings beforehand. From one presentation to the next, cramming it all in. We pulled up to gates which opened for us, a long road surrounded by grass and sheep and water. A grand house, newly furnished to look antique. Two beds and a big table and bikes with baskets. A few days in paradise. Of karaoke and murder mystery and making my team laugh till they cried. A week ending by the sea, with a walk along the pier and a visit to the book shop. A refresh and a reawaken I had been looking for. 

Delph 

My cousin married his fiancée which had been delayed from the previous year. A small house on a steep hillside. My sister and brother-in-law, an evening in white beds in neighbouring rooms. A hot bath and a night to breathe. Orange tailoring and floated fabric, we celebrated the wedding. Reunited with all ten of my cousins. Bright colours and changed faces. Newer additions and old memories. I danced with my grandma to ‘I can’t help falling in love’. I held her as we swayed together. This woman who has doubted herself through raising twelve grandchildren and sharing love equally between them. I circled the room, catching up with family pulled apart by distance. I saw myself differently. Confident, friendly, able to connect. Hold a conversation, tailor it, enjoy it. My cousin said he saw me. Said he was proud of me, that I was making the most of life and how happy that made him. Perfect night cap of an evening. 

Glastonbury 

I took some holiday in summer and didn’t have much planned in order to force myself to relax. Bel had the day off too and we decided to have a spontaneous little day trip out. We decided on Glastonbury and drove down in the sun. Delicious sandwiches split between two, book shops and vintage shops and astrology. A park bench in the sun. Painted walls and chalk pavements. 

Brighton

My best friend moved to the sea, the coast, a small flat with a coffee machine and white walls. A cat tree and a loving partner and on-street parking. A weekend breathing coastal air, colourful flags and barbecues that don’t light. Smokey circles and loud music. Drinking like a student in a beer garden full of bouncing bodies and pumping bases. Of being fed food thought out, drinking punch made with care, an afternoon in the sun with my best friend, and hers. 

Edinburgh 

My first time at the fringe. A long drive up twisting roads surrounding my red with green and brown and gold. Sipping from hot cups, low music and two sleeping passengers. A clutch and a handbrake, a wheel and a throttle. Trusted and distrusted, an adult but a child. A train into the city, a bag without a proper handle, carried to the door of a student flat. A completely new place with a familiar feeling, reeling me back to nineteen. A single bed and a desk and shelves. A small wardrobe and poster boards. A tight schedule and barcodes to gain entry into comedy nights and dramatic monologues and improvised escapades. I cried laughing and cried, touched and compelled. I met my cousin’s girlfriend, a lovely girl I bonded with over Dolly Parton and ABBA and Britney Spears. I saw one of my favourite comedians and met one of my favourite podcasters. Coffee cups and greasy breakfasts and a book with an orange cover. A long weekend of non-stop consumption. 

Westbury 

The final days of twenty three were spent at the Hesdin Estate. A smart haven in Wiltshire with work, a bright bedroom with an orange top sheet. A neon bathroom, an indoor pool of blue, weathered books on shelves. The day before twenty four I went up to the top floor, an outdoor deck, white cushions marked by the rain. A new role, a new title on the top of a white sheet of type. A chance to step up, to make more of myself, to make myself proud, to do a good job. An exciting way to welcome twenty four.