The curtain is open. I can tell before I open my eyes, the warm glow plays on the inside of my eyelids. It's still early. I curse you. You know I sleep best in the dark.
I open an eye, just a crack, before the onslaught of white morning light. It streams in through the window, pools on the ground. Things swim into focus. The old scuffed carpet, assorted study notes scattered around, and a pile of clothes, discarded in the corner. Your check shirt is bundled up, and from this angle it looks like a giant clam. I amuse myself, imagining it's giant jaws opening to reveal checked innards, as it engulfs and consumes the poor possessions around it. I am in no hurry to be properly awake. Your big white doona is a soft downy sanctuary, and were it not for your predilection for waking early I would happily float in it's warmth for hours.
But the warm mass that should be beside me is absent, and I am driven to find out where you've gone. Tentatively I pry open my other eye, and the blinding onslaught begins again. My irritation with you grows. It can't be past nine. I roll onto my back, and now the ceiling materializes, it's ridged surface littered with constellations of glow in the dark stars. I wonder who stuck them there. I wonder how many people have layed right here and looked up at them. I wonder where you've gone.
With a grumble I hoist myself up on your pillows, and blearily survey the rest of your room. Your keys. You haven't gone far. Your pants. You haven't gone far at all. Your computer hums quietly to itself, indicating that you've been up for some time. Of course you have. You can't stay still and inactive to save yourself. I grumble again and sit up properly, letting the doona slide away from me. Despite my annoyance, the sunshine is warmly pleasant and with a yawn I run a hand through my mess of hair. Little specks of dust float down the beam of light, dancing and swirling to my every move.
The door creaks open, and there you are. A bowl of porridge steams in your hand, and your face is lit by a smile as irresistable as you. I smile back. "Breakfast?"
As you climb into bed beside me and hand me my porridge my irritation vanishes. I lean into you, rest my head against your chest. Your heart is beating steadily, your arm closes in around me. I tell you that you are horrible. Planting a kiss on the top of my head, you ask why.
"Well, I can never stay angry at you long enough to yell at you"
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It's kind of silly, the things we hold onto from childhood. Some of them, we didn't even realise we still had. Hopes and dreams, buried and forgotten yet not entirely abandoned. For instance, around the age of ten I used to tell people with the utmost confidence that I would be Australia's first female prime minister. A dream, of course, long since discarded in favour of more immediately achievable ambitions. Regardless, I couldn't help but feel a twang of disappointment upon Julia Gillard's assention to leader of the labour party, despite the feminist buried somewhere within me rejoicing. Silly, I know.
Which makes me wonder how many little girls (or not so little girls) have also lost a dream.
The thing is, it's not the first who matters. No one discusses Edmund Barton at dinner parties. No, the people we remember, are the people who are good at what they do, and who achieve amazing things.
So here's my spoonful of inspiration for the day. Don't be the first. Be the best.
Friday, June 25, 2010
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