I have met all sorts of people in my lifetime thus far. The ones who arrive in designer shoes and shades and the ones who barely have a pair left to their name. Some with passports tattooed in ink from every corner of the globe, and some who have never even left the street they grew up on… and if I am completely honest, I have been a few versions of some of them myself.

Life has an interesting and mostly “unexpected” way of dragging you through some raaaather interesting wardrobes, and sometimes you only realise after the fact that you were trying on someone else’s clothes altogether.

As a kid, it really did not matter. Choices were about as simple as whose house you were playing in after school, or what snack you could smuggle down your throat without your mother finding out. But adulthood demands something else entirely… a different set of gears altogether. I remember being 20 years old, sitting in my own office, with a secretary and a client list that felt far too heavy for my still growing shoulders.

One minute I was playing pool with friends in some dingy underground pub who thought college was optional, the next I was in meetings where people wore ties tighter than their smiles. Talk about chalk and cheese.

For most of my life, I have worn the shoes of a business owner. And anyone who’s laced up those particular shoes will know, they pinch in all the worst places, lol. They will grind blisters into your spirit and yet… they will still be the very pair you would never trade, because when they fit, they make you stand taller than you ever thought you could.

They are brutal and often unforgiving but they are oh so rewarding, and they are stitched together with an incredible concoction of love, exhaustion, pride and passion!

Taking a moment to think about where I was, where I have gone, been, currently stand and where I am going…through all the phases and moulds I have had to squeeze into, the people who have ALWAYS mattered the most to me are the ones who couldn’t care less about labels, boardrooms, or social hierarchies.

The salt of the earth. Humans who don’t need to announce themselves with fancy titles or a new car smell. They arrive exactly as they are! Sometimes with nothing more than an old jersey and a story that could break your heart but somehow makes you laugh instead. And I love them for it.

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.” - Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Those are the people who have lived enough to know that being “cool” is often just being cold. They are not polished or pretentious. They have had bad luck, made messy choices, picked themselves up and carried on anyway.

There is a depth in them that you will simply never find in a filtered photo or a penthouse brag. I don’t care whether we are raising a styrofoam cup or a crystal glass. The drink goes down the same way, and the blood running in our veins doesn’t change colour depending on the container.

If I am honest, I find the other lot exhausting. The ones with their brand identities stamped across their foreheads, rehearsing stories about how wealthy their friends are (note: not they themselves, their friends).

Those are the ones who will vanish the moment your chapter doesn’t suit their narrative. They will pretend they don’t know you in public, because, heaven forbid, your existence comes with “special features” like actual feelings or a setback.

No thanks - you can keep them! Give me the unpolished ones. The ones who have learnt to laugh at life’s curveballs and curses, lol. The ones who know that substance is born from scars, not selfies. The world doesn’t spin smoother because someone is wearing Prada.

It spins because of people who keep showing up, battered shoes, tired soul and all. And I will take that kind of company any day of the week. Because when you strip it all bare, those are the people who will show up for you. The measure of life is not in what you own, but in how you have lived it and who you have lived it with.

“At the end of the day, people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou