Moments That Made Me

Sharing some special news.

Sundaze Book Café is the home of everyday magic, joyful living and conversations likely to be had over a hot drink with a friend in your favourite café, capturing the syrup-slow feel and glow of a Sunday. I’m Michelle, and I’ll be your host this Sunday.

I remember my last day at primary school as though it were yesterday. On my final afternoon in Year Six, Mum – for better or worse – told me to remember this special moment because I’d never step foot in that school again. Perhaps that was a little dramatic to say to a 10-year-old, but it left an impression on me: one that means I am painfully sentimental at every opportune moment. Before that, I was sentimental, yes, but I know that from my teenage years onwards, life has been filled with my desperate need to fill notebooks with memories, online journals with pointed words (what’s new?), and to take a little extra time to soak up being present and in the moment.

A few days into our big trip to Japan in May, my boyfriend took us on a hike up Mount Komitake and, overlooking the incredible wonder that is Mount Fuji, he got down on one knee, and asked me to marry him. Many of my engaged or married friends remark how they can barely remember the moment they were proposed to. I can see how that can be true: it’s a moment of such elation and magic that your senses completely go out of the window. It was equally as elating and magical for me, and I remember trying so deeply to focus on his face and words – while sneaking peeks at the ring! – and I know it’s a moment I’ll remember forever. I mean, I did carry my Traveler’s Notebook with me to write it all down later that day. Since I’m such a sentimental person in the first place, I don’t often consider many moments to be milestone-worthy, but our engagement surely felt like one of a few moments that made me.

Other moments that made me include the quiet Saturday morning that my siblings and I brought home our family dog for the first time. Bubbling over with excitement – and, in fact, we’d also been to Japan the previous week! – we drove over to the home and were overcome with sheer joy at becoming best friends and family with our darling puppy. Setting up Milo’s crate and new toys and tiny bowls is imprinted in my memory forever. As is the moment the ‘It Girls’ at secondary school caught wind – ahem, read the teacher’s notes – that I dreamed of becoming a fashion writer after finishing education. Their banshee-like laughs and jeers are seared into my mind and became additional fuel for me to need to succeed. (And, reader, I did it.) I’ll remember the moment my friend told me she’d successfully organised her international move to Dubai. I will never forget the flat-as-a-pancake birthday cake that my sister baked for me in lockdown in 2021.

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Thank you all, again, for your extra-sweet well wishes and congratulations on our happy news!

Now, I’m curious, what are the moments that made you?