Into the past

I had lunch with an old friend yesterday, someone I had not seen in ages, but have always been in touch with. As we sipped cold water, munched pizza and pushed our hair, blowing in the sea breeze, off our foreheads, we laughed and talked and generally caught up with each other. IT was a fun time, one that we promised each other we would repeat, and as we parted, smelling gently of fresh air and a little garlic, it was with a smile, a hug and a knowledge that we were on the same wavelength. Even though we had known each other for a long time, this was the first time we met on a 'social' basis, apart from long chats over the phone and the occasional meeting on the stairs of the office building or at her desk to which I would bounce to say a cheery hello, usually en route to somewhere else.

But there was another person at the lunch table, too, someone I had known a long time ago and not met since. She was in closer touch with this person, and knew more about what had happened to all of us in the interim. He was a journalist at one point in time, and we worked at the same newspaper for a short while before our paths diverged, travelling routes fairly distant from each other, I would say. He had the same wild hair, the same smiling look in his eyes and the same laid back way of sitting, talking and reacting, as well as the same way of staring penetratingly at me (and her, I presume), as if to try and figure out what I was about after all these years. He is now a scriptwriter for television and is doing very well for himself, my friend told me, and seemingly happy with his life.

Well, perhaps our lives have not diverged that drastically. I also write for a living, more or less, and have a great deal of fun doing it. I think the difference is, apart from my being female and from a different kind of life in many ways, that I do not care as much for what I do. What matters to me, I think, is why I do it and how I feel in doing it, whatever 'it' may be. To me it is more important to be happy, satisfied and changing something in your life for the better, than the paycheck at the end of the assignment or even the name on the article. Does that make sense?

But what I found, in talking with my friend and our companion, was that I do not seem to be very ambitious. I do not want to write a film script or make a television show that is new and different. I do not want to be part of creating a newspaper that is well presented and edited and read - I just got out of that, remember! What I do want to do is enjoy whatever it is I am doing, with the end result, apart from the nice fat check, of course, being a sense of achievement, a sense of pride in having done something worthwhile, a sense of making people who see my work think of me with a certain feeling of joy. And whether it means writing a book or writing fortunes for cookies or even writing a brochure for a lipstick line, that is why I like doing what I do. Because, for me, it all happens.