Lydia's in awe of: a little jacuzzi in the gym
On rocking horse dreams, the luxury of gym saunas and a friendship over voicenotes
It feels very millennial-coded to be like “our friendship was built on coffee!”, but that is kind of how the foundations for my relationship with Lydia began.
For the three years we spent at university together, virtually every break between seminars/post-lecture decompressions/lunch time catch-ups/drama-spilling sessions etc etc were spent in the cafe in the centre of campus, Curiositea. We’d spend a fiver on a vanilla latte and slice of cake that would leave us hopped up on sugar for the rest of the day, and get our loyalty cards punched as we discussed the reading I’d half finished and Lydia had completed weeks in advance.
Ah, simpler times. Now, Lydia lives almost 400 miles away up in Edinburgh and our catch-ups are mostly conducted over morning briefing voicenotes as we walk to our respective offices.
There’s a lot of discourse about voicenotes — the internet has hosted enraged op-eds about how they’re an infringement of our personal liberties at worst, a mild inconvenience at best. People have ranted about the entitlement of being sent a four minute ramble, aghast at the the sheer audacity of expecting someone to take a whole five minutes to listen.
But for me (I can’t speak for Lydia, of course, but I hope she feels the same), the voicenote briefings we exchange are a substitution for the hours we used to spend waffling in Curiositea, procrastinating away the essays we had due.
There’s a nice intimacy to chatting into my phone about the mundanity of my routine to someone who wants to hear about it, who will reply with the little details of her own day and voice the frustrations that just can’t be translated into text.
It’s an outlet to chatter a sudden thought into while I make my WFH afternoon cup of tea, a space to try and work through a new idea or celebrate a small win, a screaming out into the void with someone at the end of it. We’re asking to take up a little of each other’s attention and be heard, and are glad to do so — and if that isn’t friendship, what is?
What is your favourite/most formative childhood memory?
I really struggle to remember my childhood, and often what I do remember is clouded by this Hovis-advert-style Dickensian rose-tinted lens where everyone was thrilled to be working class.
My dad was sectioned when I was young, and my mum (understandably) struggled to raise us. Not many of my early memories remain intact, but I remember contracting pneumonia and the hospital playroom having an ENORMOUS rocking horse.
I must have been 3 or 4 — I loved that horse, and it's a testament to the NHS that the horse is my lingering memory of that time rather than any pain or suffering. I recovered fully, and I remember visiting my dad in his mental health hospital and begging to get one for my birthday. I was surprised when I didn't get it, perhaps because my sense of perspective wasn't fully developed at that age.
Tell me about a moment, opportunity or everyday experience that you’ve had as an adult that made you think “wow, a younger Lydia would think this was so cool”
When I joined a gym which had a sauna and pool. I remember being taken with a school friend to her parents' Health Club as a young kid. We lived off benefits in a council house at the time, and I was stunned to see such a huge shiny pool with a jacuzzi next to it.
When I first joined my current gym, I'd get up before 6am every day to get a swim and sauna in before work. Even though I could only manage a couple of minutes in the sauna at first, it was the same exhilarating luxury as that small jacuzzi was 15 years ago.
What’s one thing in your life right now that you hope an older version of yourself will look back on fondly? What do you think it’ll mean to you in 10 years?
My freedom. I have a salary, no financial commitments other than my rent and bills, and no one else I'm responsible for. I can book annual leave with no plans for it.
If I want to get up one day and go to the Highlands, I can. If I fancy a drink tonight, I can just go to the pub.
💓 Lydia's joys in the present: singing with a choir who behave like family; learning to love Scottish whisky; learning to love my partner when and after we fail each other; yin yoga; eating peanut butter from the jar; simple nights in with my flatmates; music by Samara Joy; living so close to the sea, hills, AND gorgeous city of Edinburgh.
💓 Sadia’s joys in the present: painting instead of scrolling; seeing my name in Cosmopolitan again with this article I wrote this month; repotting plants as part of the spring refresh; trying new things even if you’re kind of bad at them to begin with; hosting dinners; the golden light that comes through windows at the end of a sunny day.