Act 8: Scene 1 - AUGUST

I've had three beautiful and startling realisations this week.

Number One: It is August. This means 2013 is two thirds complete. And... that doesn't actually feel wrong.  

Number Two: It's only two months until my 21st birthday, which marks the end of the first project of Scarphelia and the reason I started to blog - to create something remarkable before I turn 21. 

Number Three: All that has happened since I started this mission... has been beyond any realm of what I could've imagined. 

*

I know that my life will never be the same after this summer.

I've always lived in the anticipation of the winter months, counting down the days til I can whack out the luxuriant fur coats, leather clothes and resume my role as ice queen. That along with living so long in confusion and frustration with where my life is going, I've never quite figure out how to function in summer.

But since that great dawning epiphany in the Summer of Silver with Florentine and Ariella, my newly-acquired gift of The Clarity and meeting my best friend in the universe Pistol, I think I've finally figured it all out. And this is the first summer I've felt truly alive. And I know that the rest of my life will be forever changed because of it.

When I recall the past couple of weeks, I can't help but give a wistful smile as I envision the sunkissed culmination of exuberant memories, weaving and intertwining together in a rose-tinted montage. I'm haplessly in love with everything at the moment.

There have been Garden parties in Regents Park with the TWC, coffee dates and storytelling with Pistol, lone wanderings around contemporary art galleries and museums in London, shopping in the hipster backstreets of Shoreditch and dinners out with Ariella, TWC gatherings and drunken salsa dancing with JK, and the sun has just been shining unhindered in the cerulean sky, mirroring my own beaming, barely-concealable glee.   

Also, I have found a very unexpected kind of happiness, one that I would've anticipated, especially for someone like myself. 

His name is Oliver. (I don't need to give him a crafty alias as he is yet to discover Scarphelia exists.) The guy I was referring to in the 'Crushing' post. He's a recent Business graduate from my University, and what has grown is a sweet and innocent mutual affection that just makes me smile without realising it. I'm surprised because I'm actually managing to not to be entirely over-analytical, and this affection does not seem to detract from life as I've always thought perhaps something of the kind would. In fact, everything just seems enhanced, an extra layer of happiness that I was never before aware even existed, like suddenly discovering a new colour on the rainbow you'd never seen before. 

Bloody hell, maybe I truly am growing up.

There was one moment when I was with Pistol recently that truly made me realise just how lucky I was.

I'd had a job interview in the City at an up and coming fashion label to be their social media manager, and deciding to make the most of the day, I'd called Oliver to see if he was about. We ended up going out for drinks with a some of his friends, one of which turned out to be a rather famous singer, and actually had a pretty mental night resulting in drinking beer on the balcony of a sweet flat in East London owned by a friend of his who was a music agent.

The next morning he had to go to work, so leisurely left me a key so I could sleep a bit longer, potter round the flat and leave when I fancied. 

After he'd graduated last year he'd moved to Camden, and currently resides in an adorable flat in a converted warehouse, that overlooks the canal. So upon waking, I gathered my things, locked up and wandered down to sit by the lock and watch the canal boats for a moment. The air was thrumming with summer, the sun was warm and revitalising on my skin, and as the long slow riverboats slipped by gracefully through the water I just felt a resounding sense of absolute peace. 

With no other plans for the day, I called Pistol to see if he wanted to go for a coffee, and was delighted to find that he was in the city and free. He'd been working at a trading firm and crashing at his friend's flat above a coffee shop in Shoreditch, and invited me over to have a brief rendez-vous before we had to head home again.

So I began what seemed to be the marathon slog from Camden Town to Shoreditch High Street in 35'c heat, hundreds of disgruntled and overheated Brit's shoving from all sides, but finally I made it. 

The street in which she lived was absolutely adorable, and her flat was equally as impressive. Flagged by Parisian-looking sandstone townhouses on either side, her flat was above an adorable vintage coffeehouse, and across the road from a quirky and modern sushi place. The whole street was adorned with colourful and expansive street art and lined with multi-colour bunting which swayed softly above the street market below. I was exhausted, extremely hot and a still a little bit hungover, but I couldn't help but smile.

The interior of her flat was unbelievable too, it looked straight out of the architecture blog I'd put together to plan my perfect future, with whitewashed walls, wood paneled floors and huge sweeping french windows which opened out to look down upon the street market. 

Pistol and I got drinks, opened the windows and sat together on the windowsill, letting our legs dangle in the summer breeze.

"You know how we always talk about the future as if all our dreams are already set in stone? Do you ever stop and consider that we actually might not ever get there?"

I looked at him for a moment. 

Then in one collective clarity-thought moment, I looked around at everything, not just in my life, but the life I had with him too. I was sat in the flat of my dreams on a beautiful summers day with my best friend, after attending an interview for a city job in the fashion industry and hanging out with a guy that makes me happy, and his wonderfully fun friends. And he had just graduated with a 2.1 degree, was working as a trader in the City whilst staying in his friends incredible flat in East London and was about to jet off to Holland for two years to complete his Masters. 

"Pistol... This is the closest we have ever been. Do you see? Look around you... This is what we have always wanted. And we almost have it."

He looked at me for a moment before his face broke into a massive grin.

And today I found out I'd go the job.

*

What had started as the fear of growing older and time passing me by quicker than I can seize it, has blessed me with a foresight I've so long been void of, to be able to appreciate every single day, every single passing moment and see the beauty in every chance moment and strange encounter. 

This fear of the future has stretched out this year to feel as though it has lasted a millennium. I can barely remember being 15, 16, 17 years old - those years slid past at an alarming rate in a blur of dull routine and lacklustre ambition. 

But this year stretching from turning 20 in October 2012 and creeping up to my 21st, has seemed the longest year of my entire life, and the only one in my young life which I believe I have been consciously, spiritually and mentally aware, of everything and everyone. 

This year has allowed me to finally grow up, and I actually now feel ready to be an adult, to take on the world, and, excuse the cheesiness, but make all my dreams come true. And greatest of all, having this year of utter reflection has completely dispelled my fear of the future. It's not that I am no longer afraid of time slipping past me, it's just that I know, from here on out, I never ever let it will again.  

If there is one thing I have learnt from this journey, it's this. The future need not be your enemy, if you know how to treat the present.

Scarlet-Ophelia
@KatieOldham