I caught up on Monday night with a friend of mine from high school. We both live in New York now, but we know each other from our teenage years in Croydon, Southeast London. He slid into my DMs on Instagram, and I asked him round for a cup of tea. We ended up having two cups of tea on a Monday night, which is a bacchanalia for me these days. And we agreed to say hello again soon. For me, the father of a two-year-old, that is like agreeing to run away to join a circus. The complexities of middle-aged social interaction being what they are.
Matt is very successful now. Not me. Him. We’re both called Matt and we’re both from Croydon. He’s a professional composer and he wrote the music for a big TV show last year. Airlines trust him with their “audio identities.” But the thing that struck me most was we haven’t seen each other for 25 years. A quarter of a century. And yet we were able to pick up the conversation where we left off. It was remarkable.
One of the main things I realized was that even all those years ago, the seeds were there for Matt’s success. He was a generous-hearted, open, and positive guy at school. I’m talking about him but I’m also talking about myself, I suppose. I don’t like false modesty. We’re doubles. We were both in bands and he was always keen to play gigs together. We both used to go to this bar in Croydon called Rawnsley’s. You’d walk in and go down a spiral staircase and there would be about 100 underage schoolchildren. We all knew each other, and we were all flouting the licensing regulations. I’m still amazed to say that it was one of the best social scenes I’ve ever been around. Forget university or working for a punk newspaper. It was more bohemian than living in the West Village is. You’d bump into all these kids who were intent on doing amazing things in the world. The idealism was palpable. It’s one of the reasons I have a tattoo on my forearm of Croydon’s only recognizable landmark, a concrete office building near the commuter railway station. Because I know you can find the most amazing things in the most unlikely places.
Not everybody lived up to their dreams at the time, of course. Some of us went on, for example, to be spokespeople for major corporations. Others have found disgrace in political scandals. The amusing thing about that is, those were some of the most ambitious youngsters. What I realize in hindsight is that it’s important to have quiet confidence in your own interests. What interests you—it can be anything, really—is more important than your supposed prospects. If you do the things you enjoy as a young person, if you have the confidence to pursue those things, then you’ll be ok. With luck. The misstep is to pursue things because they’re impressive to other people. Or because they align with somebody else’s idea of success. I always enjoyed talking to people, and I always enjoyed the subtle nuance of written words. The rest is gravy. Although my best memory from that bar was dancing so hard, I managed to punch myself in the face, once. And I haven’t made a career out of that. Yet. Perhaps in time.
Both Matt and I have had our setbacks, too, over the years. Not everything went well. We’ve both had to correct our course a few times. What I enjoyed about reconnecting in New York was the shared sense that we both got here in the same way, in a way. We both followed our passions and talents without being too conventional. I can also see how what one achieves is less important, in a way, than being kind to each other, in the end. It’s also important to be kind to the people who took courses that led them away from their passions. We both talked about reaching out to the people we’ve not spoken to in a while. Another friend of mine was telling me that her college reunions started competitive. But over the years, as her classmates have been through more, everybody has got much kinder. And that’s what I’ll take from my two cups of tea on Monday night. To believe that there’s a path forward in life for everyone. No matter how hard it might appear at certain points, the path keeps twisting and turning. There are hard bits and there are good bits. But with hindsight, I wouldn’t swap out any of either. I am just very grateful for the intensity and joy of the whole journey. And it is very nice to say “hello” to one’s fellow travelers as your paths cross. Particularly after remarkable time and distances.
