Heroine-In-Training

Ever have one of those go-with-the-flow kinda nights that start off with one drink and end up with one or more of your friends running around naked?


Well that was my Friday night. It all started with after-work knock-off drinks, a tradition in the restaurant I work at. I was on my way home, and ex-colleagues Bron, Shar and Zar were hanging around, and they enticed me with that good old line: 'Just one more drink?' Yeah sure.

Around 15 drinks later somebody came up with the idea to go to the beach in the middle of the night. (It was probably Shar. 'Sometimes,' he always says, 'You've just gotta do something TOTALLY ABNORMAL.') This is during a Melbourne winter. I know everyone pictures Australia to be all desert-y and burning hot, but Melbourne winters are FREAKIN FREEZING!

So suddenly we're at St Kilda beach, it's raining, I'm about to die of hypothermia if not for the red wine, and Bron and Zar strip naked and run around screaming hysterically. Oddly enough, it didn't seem weird at the time. Now I'm dissolving into giggles at the thought of some poor member of the public stumbling upon us and sprinting for their lives.

Me and Shar hung out - fully clothed - on the shore, staring at the water and talking about life, love and death. Strictly speaking we aren't that close a pair of friends so it's funny we ended up confiding in each other the way we did. But sometimes a couple of drinks is all you need to really bond with someone. Not in that way, you perv.

However, my awesome inability to hold red wine came and interupted the moment, and before I knew it I was hurling out a cab door. Good night.

Zar's a funny one. He's a writer, which piqued my interest, but he has one of those unfortunate habits of trying to make every single moment a profound epiphany, and quoting random strings of poetry he's memorised trying to impress people. When you first meet him you're like, 'Wow! This guy is really deep and creative and profound' but after a while it spirals into 'Wow, this guy is really pretentious and annoying'. He's a nice enough guy but he needs to ease off on the monologues.

What I learned from this night and these people was that sometimes, you've gotta stop sitting around talking about life and love, in order to start living and loving for real. This is my life, right here right now; not hovering on the horizon while I sit on some God-forsaken Melbourne beach in the middle of winter; not sparking in the distance as I decide how I'm going to waste my time this week. My life is here, and I've got some catching up to do.