Tiny Dancer

I could sum up what I did today in five words: I went to a wedding.

But instead I have pooled so many thoughts in this melon of mine. The first I should divulge is congratulations to Winnie and Jason! Hope today and the future is all you guys hope to be.

And once again I find myself thinking about the past, present and future. It's been yet another marker! I can't remember if I made mention of the other milestones I've been thinking about but it's been constant progressing, from my peers beginning full time work, to me graduating, to having the pre-work holiday, to arriving back counting down the weeks till work, and then work itself. Included during this time is the wedding today.

Now I've been to a couple of other weddings in the last year or two but I don't think they impacted me as much as the one I attended today because in a skewed way, I didn't quite connect the previous weddings with me moving along in life, but rather other people progressing. I figured out today that because I only felt advancement in life with my peers at university, it wasn't until someone from this social circle progressed that I felt self progression too. Hmm that was a bit of a mouthful, don't mind me if I've lost you.

Anyhow, to help make what I just said a bit more digestible, I concluded that it's like playing Wii Sports and collecting win after win and increasing your point level along the way - I'm collecting all these milestones (graduating, friends' weddings, full-time work) and using them as tangibles to define what stage of my life I'm at.

I'm unsure of what it is about these last few days but I've been hit by a sizable wave of nostalgia. First, on Thursday a friend from high school SMS's me about wanting to catch up after a year-long study hiatus in China. The same day I engage in a discussion about Introductory Microeconomics (haha I hear all you Commerce guys out there go "Oh my gosh I remember that!") and uni life in general with a friend from church who's starting uni this year. Then I have a huge chat with another school friend about where we all were ten years ago in 1997. And today pretty much topped it off in an explosion from the past during the wedding seeing faces I recognised from years back, then later going to Box Hill for lunch when I bumped into another friend from high school whom I hadn't talked to in years and then later at lunch seeing yet another friend from my early uni days.

And in a typically melancholy way, I now find myself unwittingly replaying past memories in my head and missing those good old times, but that's not to say I don't like the present. I acknowledge that we each have our own way in life, and we follow the paths we forge for ourselves. But with this means that where we intersect paths with certain people along the way, it's sometimes only for a brief moment before we all diverge and continue along our journey again.

I don't know why but while thinking about all this Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" started playing in my head. And I didn't really relate to it until now. You see, my memories are my Tiny Dancer, the one that's always with me, in my hand. Where sometimes I say "Hold me closer Tiny Dancer" - you had a busy day today.

Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sand
And now she's in me, always with me, tiny dancer in my hand

Hold me closer tiny dancer
Count the headlights on the highway...
Lay me down in sheets of linen
You had a busy day today