Sometimes it takes looking at something from a different perspective to discover something new. Yesterday I was having a great, juicy natter with my beautiful mate Simon Trevorrow (who’s a bloody great film maker – keep an eye out for his work). At one point I was telling him how 19 years ago, when I was 26, I found myself – bewilderingly – in an accounts job. I was about to resign as I was aware that I sucked at it and was very unhappy when I was swept up in a massive business restructure and got retrenched instead. I was so so lucky as it meant that I got the sort of cash injection I’d never had before. I started to tell Simon that I spent it all on… and he said, “Shoes?” “Clothes?” and I thought, “Hey, it never occurred to me to spend it on those things.” I mean, I love shoes and clothes and had certainly given my credit card and beating in that regard, but for some reason I wanted to use the money on something else. I got a new lens for my Canon Eos 50 and bought loads of 35mm film and spent loads and loads on having the film processed. Oh, and I bought groceries too. Eating’s kinda necessary and I didn’t expect my boyfriend to pay my food bill. I learnt a lot from just having the tools and doing it.
Probably too often we look back on things we would have liked to have done differently and give ourselves a hard time about our stuff ups , and it made me smile to think of this particular decision and think – hey! Good one, Gab.