Riverbank Blues

© David Campbell

All Images remain the rightful property of David Campbell.

The dress clings tight to her curves, touching all the right places.  Her heels, silver, encrusted with tiny silver jewels. She stands tall and the wind blows, whipping her hair lovingly around her shoulders. And she feels alive.  As if she knows a secret, no one else knows.

20 Facts About Me

1. I was born 3 weeks too early and had to be put

in an incubator...to cook. (joking) but as a result, I was a tiny four pound baby.

2. I'm Half Greek/Half Guyanese.

3. I first started writing stories at 5 and I haven't stopped since.

4. I involuntarily start crying in winter. My eyes just water uncontrollably in windy environments. It's so weird, and my dad suffers it too.

6. I considered being a professional actor before realising hairdressing and writing was my passion.

7. I write for Elite Daily.

8. My favorite fruit is watermelon.

9. I'm scared of the dark.

10. I'm OCD about being clean.

11. I wear a silver cross that I never take off.

12. I wish I had naturally wavy hair like my Mum.

13. I have two brothers.

14. I fell in love at 14.

15.  I've known my best friend since I was thirteen.

16. I'm only 5"3 and even my boss calls me 'little!'

17. I'm allergic to prawns.

18. I have a severe fear of flying.

19. I hate spicy food.

20. And last but not least, my name is derived from the word philosophy, meaning wisdom. :)

Dear 21 Year Old Me...

Dear 21 Year Old Me,

You made it.

You know how they say you're meant to have an epiphany on your 21st? Grow wings? become an elder? All that jazz?

Well, have you?

I think you have. 

I think you've come a long way

A long way from being a six year old queen bee, from colourful pencil shavings and having your hair pulled by nasty, naughty third grader boys. A long way from travelling back and forth from England to Australia. A long way from sitting alone on the first day of high school, wandering if your coffee complexion and frizzy hair will ever get you a seat with the 'popular girls' and whether you'll ever stop writing in recess break time to keep your thoughts from spilling out through your dreams.

A long way from a highschool romance that almost broke your heart, and the few affairs that followed that almost drove you mad, but taught you so many valuable lessons about your own self worth.

A long way from all the long nights spent working on your novel and the early mornings finishing hair exams and all the bottles of V energy and blueberry muffins you scoffed, struggling to keep awake long enough to get through the day and the frightening job trials with girls with perfectly styled blondes coifs of hair.

But most of all, you've come a long way from all the grief, hardship and hurdles that life brings and you've used all of it as a massive sandpit to grow and evolve in and ultimately, fall in love with life again.

You grew up.

Along with all the people, you love and cherish the most.

Your best friends, soulmates and the people that have watched you grow into the author, hair stylist model and beautiful human being that you've become.

 Love,

You xoxo




 
 

Because I Say Yes.

Sometimes there's true happiness to be felt when I tease my hair out and apply a coat of my favourite shade of red. ;)

It's been a bizarre month. Some pitfalls, some joys, but overall, the only thought consistently running through
my head is: "You made it!" and I continue to think it every day.  I got the job and I'm on my way to a rewarding career.   And there was a time, after all the countless interviews (where I spent a good majority being a professional bullshit artist) and the disappointment and the heartache waiting for the phone to ring, that I felt like giving up, but I didn't, because I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, the moment I stopped saying yes to new opportunities was gonna be the moment I stopped truly living.


Patience, hope, faith and trust in something bigger than your own self doubt  is seriously powerful and along with letting go of your fear of the unknown, it's having the courage to say YES even if something doesn't work out.  Even if you get rejected.  Even if you're scared out of your wits.  Even if your heart seems incapable of opening once more.

It's freeing...liberating and strangely comforting knowing that in order to really live, we need to take steps toward the unknown. Even if they are only baby steps.

The best advice I ever heard was, "Do at least one thing a day, that scares you."

Save The Last Dance For Me

Admidst the awkward twenty year old uni groups, and the Sixty year old DJ who should be in bed, my best friend takes my hand and leads me onto the floor and even though it's old eighties music and the floor is sticky like marmalade and the disco balls spin around the room... for a minute I'm Ginger Rogers, and he's Fred Astaire, and our smiles glisten all the way to our eyes and we giggle because we feel like we're in on some secret that they're not.

And everyone's staring because he's 6"foot with a shaved head and a gangster attitude and I'm 5"4 nothing wearing a cocktail dress and black boots and my short black bob cut makes me look ostentatious.

We know we're out of place but we're not misfits. We're not misfits, because we have each other.

And we fit because it's effortless. Unconditional. And like all good music, our friendship only gets better with time.