My best friend's birthday

Hi best friend,

In two days time, you will be celebrating your birthday in Praha. How the heck did you end up there???

Hmmm, I think I have a clue; it all started the day you decided your life would be different. It all started the day you decided that you would carry out your wildest dreams with grace and courage. On that blessed day, you opened the door of your heart to life and invited all the best it had to offer to wrap you up.

I have known you for the past 10 years and your transparent and free of any guile nature has continuously amazed and inspired me. True, you are quite a puzzle sometimes. You are up and about, getting in and out predicaments with startling ease and you are always ruled by colourful ideals and imaginative ideas.

One thing I have learned over the years is that your spirit and mind are free like the wind and they should never be contained. I just the love the idea of knowing you are in another part of the world right now, walking restlessly up and down the streets of Praha spreading your light to anyone who would come your way.

Une place de choix had to be dedicated to you on this blog. You always see the best there is in me and you have a been a true friend throughout the years. I wish you all the happiness in the world because you truly deserve it.May this special day of yours and all those to come be filled with...

Looking back over my shoulder

I don't know if I took the right train but the stations along the way to the final destination seem stranger and the viewpoints more and more peculiar.Looking back over my shoulder and after a careful analysis of all these years of apprenticeship I find it strange to be standing in a no man's land. Shouldn't I be somewhere more familiar, I mean a place which resembles my comfort zone?

Maybe a few questions might help in finding a proper answer:

• How much have I evolved as a person?
• Am I better than ten years ago or simply different? 
• How many values have I added to my portfolio?
• How many lives did I help to change?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Have I moved further from my inner self than what I believed?

Well, I may not have definite answers to the above but I do remember:

...waiting for mum under the mango tree in the school yard
...the sound of our old VW when going to the seaside
...the thrill of the first day at college
...laughing with my friends
...becoming an uncle
...my first kiss

Come to think about it, I am probably much closer to my inner self than what I believed.