"I thought about what you said,."

"I thought about what you said," the American girl who worked in the coffee shop told me last Friday morning as I walked in with my wee problem (you must read that with a Scottish accent by the way, it's how I'm dealing with it anyway, trying to minimise the fear)

"What I said? What did I say?!"

A week or so earlier, she told me she was leaving the UK as the Home Office wouldn't renew her visa and she was really sad about leaving.

Be glad you're sad, I'd said. I'd had a breakdown in Japan and when I rose from it, declared to friends I would leave the country in seven months. Why wait that long, friends had asked, if I was so unhappy, and I said I wanted to give myself a chance of liking the country, so that I might leave with good memories.

"I thought about what you said and you were right," said the American girl. "Why leave with bad memories of a place. I went and made up with that dick I told you about. No point in hating him, we're friends now, not that it matters, but I leave thinking good things, you know?"

Yeah, I know...

I can't tell you how it feels, how it felt, to know that I had transformed someone's way of thinking about themselves and their experience in a positive way. No-one listens to me!!

My blog is here though. If someone has walked away from it taking some knowledge with them, well, that is the greatest compliment you can make me. The American girl paid me a huge compliment saying what she did, but I couldn't tell her.

I will really miss her. So will The Estimator. So will others in the coffee shop. So will her boss actually given what she bought to her job, writing positive quotes about coffee on the chalk board for potential customers walking past. She has an amazing energy. Ha ha, I'm just remembering what she said yesterday, her last day, sad to leave us all, when I told her she wouldn't have stayed in this coffee shop for long. "That's true, I can keep doing these bum jobs but I've got a masters, I may as well use it," Yeah, me too...

It's not her choice to go. She had two jobs but they wouldn't renew her visa because she didn't earn enough (*shakes head*)

I wish her well on her journey
I wish you well on yours
I wish me well on mine
of course
Do you wish yourself well on yours? Ever?