It’s been a week since the last post. How does that even happen? I remember years ago when I would write almost every day. How did I find time? Perhaps I didn’t try to juggle quite so many balls at once. Perhaps I didn’t used to be quite such a gigantic idiot.
One of my daughters has been asking if I might visit the local gym with her. Although I love the idea of getting back to some sort of fitness, and I can probably afford it, I’m not sure where I would find the time. I know - I should make time - but there are so many other things I want to do too. Books to read, content to create for YouTube, chores, and of course work.
It probably sounds like I do very little work, given that I rarely write about it.
The funny think about software development? The problems you wrestle with don’t leave your head. While out with my youngest daughter this morning I became lost in thought while sitting on a bus, and solved a problem I’ve been struggling with for some time. I immediately fished my phone out and began to write notes in an app.
“What are you writing?”
“Oh, nothing”.
We rarely talk about my work.
I primarily went shopping for shoes today - my daughter came along on condition that I might buy her McDonalds. We ate breakfast wraps together and downed a coffee.
Towards the end of our trip I wandered into a record store and spent a few minutes flipping through the vinyl albums. The price of vinyl albums scares me to death - but this evening I sat with friends and we worked out that they haven’t really changed over the years. Albums have ALWAYS been expensive.
After picking up another Taylor Swift album, I worked backwards through the alphabet - finding boxes full of artists new and old, but nothing really grabbed me.
Until it did.
The final box - labelled “A” had a solitary Tori Amos album in it. Suddenly memories flooded back of sitting late at night listening to “Little Earthquakes”. Oh how I had loved Tori.
I crouched down in the record store, more in hope than anything - that my first Tori album might be hiding in the unsorted albums stacked below the display cases.
And there it was.
Little Earthquakes.
A white album cover, with a red headed girl climbing from a wooden crate in the centre.
A piece of my youth, right there, in my hands.
I left the record store with a huge hole in my bank account. I’m listening to her now - at 2:30am - and wondering why I ever stopped listening.
Sometimes rediscovery is just as powerful as the first time. Sometimes.