walk the plank

Everything you could ever want in the world is just outside your comfort zone.

The first flat I ever had was a teeny little place where each room doubled for the next. A two hundred year old, not-exactly-kept, terraced house converted into upstairs/downstairs apartments. I lived on the top floor and caught the draft from the attic. It had a closed up fireplace with a false one sitting in front of it. Two boilers. Four radiators. And a bidet I filled with magazines.

It was Northern England and, even though I only remember it snowing once that year, it was cold. Very. Cold. I owned one twin duvet bought from Bhs. I still have it and it still keeps me warm when nothing else will.

There was just enough space in my bedroom for a half bed, a wardrobe, and a low-sitting bathroom hamper covered in pvc roses that I used to store books and sit my computer upon. The bed itself sat beneath double windows that weren’t double glazed. I never saw any cracks around the edges but sometimes at night my curtains would blow around like they did.

When this would happen I’d pull them open and lay there, in the dark, staring at rows and rows of roofs of terraced houses and the sets of chimney stacks that sat on top of each of them and think, It’s just like Peter Pan.

Everything you could ever want in the world is just outside your comfort zone. Jennifer Aniston said something like this in Vogue this month.

I think she’s right.