Sunscreen hot!

So this has been a busy week, rushing to meet last month's deadlines and feeling a little stressed. It is also really hot and all I want to do is live in a bubble of that moment when you have just pushed off from the side of the pool, before you take a stroke, and the water is still and clear and the world is a sparkling blue... sigh... (Sorry to my northern hemisphere readers +Tessa Hampton ). 

Anyway, so I am going to cheat and use someone else's words in my blog post today. I have recently been reminded (by a truly awesome penguinologist) of the lyrics to a song. I say reminded, but truly snippets of the song are always in the back of my head. There are things, (movies, HIMYM, songs, books, conversations etc) that impact my life disproportionately to what you would expect or even what they should. This song is one of those things. The words are based on an article written by Mary Schmich (according to the all-knowledgeable wiki) and Baz Luhrman made it into "Everybody's Free (to wear Sunscreen)" or more popularly: "The Sunscreen Song". 

"Wear Sunscreen

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ‘97…Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh never mind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked…You’re not as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’r ahead, sometimes you’re behind…the race is long, and in the end it’s only with yourself.

Remember the compliments you recive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what to do with your life…the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wantd to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75^th wedding anniversary…whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either – your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.

Enjoy your body, use it every way you can…don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

Dance…even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents, you’ll never know when they’ll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography in lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live in Northern California once but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you, fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time it’s 40, it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen…"

P.S. I can honestly say I dance in my living room and have never thrown away a letter from an ex love. I am a sunscreen Nazi and my hair is pretty much left to its own devices because I am terrified of ruining it.  I consider Johannesburg and Cape Town the South African equivalents of New York and North California, although I would love to visit both of those parts of the world. My siblings and my parents are my favourite people in the world, I would be lost without them. There are bits of the song I need to still work on, and I am not sure about doing something that scares me every day, but at the moment I am doing the #100happydays challenge and taking a picture of something that makes me happy everyday. And maybe today it should be birthday tea... or a swim in the sea... or the pool... or sending off two of my chapters to the supervisorials.

Weekend on the horizon...