I have lost a friend recently, I hardly knew her. Only through blogs and emails. She had found my blog and wanted to use some of my own words on her blog that she really liked. I know I hardly know her, but she had hopes, dreams and was heading to a new life, the other side of America.

We exchanged emails, talked about our travels, our challenges, our lives.  Perhaps the beauty of the modern world is also its damnation.  We are able to connect with more people, know more people and think of them as friends, but we are also opening ourselves up to loosing more people.

Kate was a doctor, on her way to a new job, new life and enjoying her travels.

So, in memory of Kate, here is the post she liked.

I am listening to Beyond Time (ambient mix) by Blank and Jones. You can listen to it by clicking here.

Listen to it, close your eyes – don’t look at the screen, don’t look at anything. Picture yourself where you want to be. Take the moment of solitude before the bass kicks in to do a complete 360 shot of yourself, once the heavy bass kicks in dream of the discoveries you will make, the small things you see everyday that have made you stop and look twice. Allow yourself a little smile.

Seven Minutes and 40 seconds.

How often do any of us ever actually dedicate that amount of time to just closing our eyes and dreaming of somewhere else. And not the dreams before you fall asleep that you actually have very little control over, in this you are in control.

Seven Minutes and 40 seconds

Isn’t really that long, so why do we push ourselves continuously to be as busy as possible, cram everything in, work harder, play harder. Just stop.

For Seven minutes and forty seconds.

Don’t think about the music, don’t analyse it, don’t think about the lyrics. Just shut off.

I’m still not a hippy, I just wish that the whole world would take a day off, without insecurities or stresses most people are actually quite nice and a whole lot happier.

I hope that some of you will appreciate this. I look forward to my new life. Because I have suddenly realised that it’s not about the travel, it’s not about getting out of a job I didn’t like. I don’t know tha answer yet, but I’m going to go looking.

I realise that some people will just think that it’s because I’m “at that age”.

My question to you is this – when did you give up, when did you give in?

Think about this also for just a few minutes…

If I said to you that I want you to plan your life around me, around where I want you to be for 30 hours each week, at the times I specify – which happen to be during the day, when the sun is out, I will leave you the dark evenings though, so you can eat, have a few hours to yourself and get some sleep before you come back to do what I want you to do.

How much would you want for me to disrupt your life like that?

Kate, goodbye. I will miss our little catchups and quick chats, I will miss your enthusiasm for life, you never knew what I loked like, your last email asked me for a picture, I didn’t reply quickly enough because I was wanted to find a picutre that was “right”, then the van came along and I didn’t find that picture and send it to you, sorry. Goodbye Kate.