Looking back…

Hurrah! We are halfway through the week and I am already getting excited about the weekend.

On Saturday, Friend-Who-Knows-Big-Words is getting married.

Friend-Who-Knows-Big-Words is one of my best friends – one of my ‘Inner Circle’ – if the BBC’s recent report on friendship is to be believed.

We were at school together and part of a group of four – the other two members were Best-Friend-And-Head-Girl and BeeBop.

Anyway, she's marrying French Boy and when she does, I will be the last unmarried one left out of all of us.

But when you look back at our high-school year book, it is kind of what we always expected! Best-Friend-And-Head-Girl 's entry said she'd be a primary school teacher – tick, be involved in the community – tick, be married to a lovely man – tick, and have babies – tick. The only thing that isn't right is she chose to do it all Up Norf.

Now, BeeBop... I think we said she'd get brilliant marks in her degree and then go off and do something totally unrelated – big tick. She's married to a Mr Jones and also lives Up Norf.

Then there was Friend-Who-Knows-Big-Words. We said she'd travel the world and fall in love with a gorgeous hunk called Brad – tick and half tick as I don't really think Brad would suit French Boy as a name – not really Gallic enough!

And then there was me. Well for starters they said my ideal man was Mr Happy... a fat, round and yellow individual... Ummmm… thankfully I haven't fulfilled this prophecy.

And they predicted that I'd be writing for Cosmopolitan from a padded cell. Ummmmm... Well to be honest, and rather alarmingly, that's not too far off the mark! Although you might want to skip the insanity part.

I really love finding predictions like these, made years ago and comparing them to my current situation. Not long ago, I found a notebook at The Rents' house full of angst-ridden teenage poetry from the time I was losing my hearing. It was fascinating looking back at a younger me, at my despair with deafness and almost misery at the situation. But then I found a section at the back, written in 1998. It said that in 10 years time I would be living in west London and working on a magazine. I also predicted that I'd be single...

Tick

Tick

and…

Tick

I love the fact that even though I was in despair about going deaf (haha, ahem sorry I just typed dead), I never even contemplated letting it get in the way of my ambitions.

I also love the fact that 10 years down the line, I'd be wise to take a leaf out of my younger self's book. And so, that's just what I am going to do.