Life After.

Some much needed Grandma comfort after a particularly boisterous chorus of "Happy Birthday"

My Grandma died when I was five. She lived in the granny flat attached to our house, we would watch Home and Away together every night at 7:00pm, and she made killer sandwiches, but I wasn't old enough to truly understand that loss. I remember feeling sad for my Mum when she told us she had slipped into a coma as we stood outside of the hospital. She told us she might wake up, but she might not. I did cry at her funeral and I remember feeling confused thinking about what it all meant. It was the day I learned what forever was. I sat in the back of our car staring out the window wondering when the next time I would see her would be. 50 years? 100 years? Back then one year felt like forever but wrapping my head around the fact that an infinite number of years could pass and I would still never see her was a memory that has stuck with me. 

Tonight my family and I were lounging around after dinner when my dad got a phone call, before he had even hung up we knew what had happened. 

"Deano's Dead." 

That was it.

We all sat in silence.

My Dad's good friend had been battling cancer for almost a year, and the verdict had constantly flittered back and forth between optimism and realism. These past few weeks the writing was on the wall and we had been awaiting this very call. 

I wasn't particularly close to this friend, but he was a presence in our life as a family and I felt the shift as the news came down. 

I teared up when I heard, because at the end of the day, a life is a life. I felt weird about getting emotional. My day to day life would hardly see a difference, but I could feel the pain in those around me. I thought of his family. 

The passing of one is often the worst day for another. 

It was that feeling of forever creeping back in again. I looked over at my own Dad, never one for emotion, yet obviously lost in his own thoughts, I could still see him, he was still here. Tonight it wasn't my Dad, but it was someones Dad. I thought about how one day it would be my Dad, and how on that day I would be breaking while someone else was thankful it wasn't happening to them. They still had time. I still have time. 

"Who wants fruit salad?" My Dad questioned grabbing bowls from the cupboard.

We paused.

"No?"

"I do." My step-mum finally made the first move.

"Me too" I added, as if permission was granted for us to keep living.

I just kept thinking about how in this moment everything was weirdly normal. 

Here we were sitting around eating fruit salad and watching Silent Witness which we had done identically the night before but yesterday he was alive and tonight he was not.

Eventually the dog started snoring, breaking the silence.

We all laughed.

My youngest brother tripped running up the stairs.

We laughed again.

Remembering it was ok to do so.

The silence lifted and suddenly we were back discussing what was happening on the TV.

Everything was normal, but different all the same.

Night Blogging

Forever Naked, makeup-less and clutching wine (It's a small bottle, my head isn't the gigantic)

My ex-boyfriend calls me 'Munk....can we take a moment to appreciate why? Cheek bones of a chubby 3 year old.

Anyway.

So it's safe to say I well and truly fell off whatever kind of blog wagon I was on. Whoops. I wish I could say it was because I was off bull fighting or climbing mountains....but that would be an enormous lie. I was simply just feeling super un-witty and boring, which is super rare for me because I normally find myself utterly fabulous and hilarious....but alas, I didn't feel blog-y, drop it.

Something that did kind of make me very happy was seeing my chummy old pal Rachel a few days back for the first time in, I dunno, two centuries and the first thing she said was a) how hilarious I was and b) how much she was liking my blog. Life lesson chickens; These are the kind of people you need to keep around!  Not only that but a kind stranger who happened to be looking for bloggers for his business (Even after I warned him I was a swearing alcoholic!) heard her talking about this little blog of mine, asked me if I was as amazing as she said (I said of course because duh!) and took down all my information. So, welcome kind stranger. I'm Jordyn. I'm a little flustered, I make some questionable choices, I cry at the drop of a hat, my grammar is atrocious, I laugh way too hard at really bad jokes and I like to think I'm a bit of an enigma, but really I'm just a bit of a hot mess.

Now that we are all acquainted, let us dive right in.

Something I've been thinking a lot about recently is the idea that life is short (deep wine thoughts, party of this girl). I think that is ridiculous.

Tell me one thing, you as an individual, experience that is longer than your life? I'll wait.

Now as we take a giant leap over religion, let us dance on over to the corner of the room where I am right.

We are constantly drilled with the idea of this ticking clock hung over our heads that forces us to race toward a career, dive into marriage, pop out some infants, love them through life and cool down in a rocking chair after the marathon we just sprinted through. Why the rush? We are putting deadlines on things that will happen whenever they happen. We are fighting for youth and syncing our hearts up with this racing clock that owns an alarm we fear more than any kind of mythical monster or beast.

We are writing off the every day moments: hilarious exchanges between coworkers, loving meals with friends, perfect weather.In reflection, the small little things that make up a life, and make us happy even if it's for .5 seconds, don't even cross our minds. Instead we are thinking about what we accomplished in a day, how much work we got done on a task or how we furthered ourself along our pathway....a pathway that ends where? a veiled unknown.

Little things make me exceptionally happy. A joke my brother made almost 4 years ago still makes me cry with laughter, a 3am conversation I had with a friend on a fire escape in late 2011 is still one of my most cherished moments...What good did they do for my future? Nothing. But they make me so happy right here, right now.

I remember talking with an old coworker a while back and she was complaining about how all she wanted to do was eat ice-cream but instead she was going to choke back a diet pill and go to the gym. Now I understand working out makes some people happy...but she hated it and was forcing herself to do it because she thought she needed to.Would she be happier if she was 100 pounds instead of 105? No, because she had it in her head that she always had to be working towards smaller and smaller so the number on the scale would never be satisfying. We want to live this life of no regrets but the moment we do something that goes against our plan, or skews us even slightly, we regret it. We set these goals that grow into monsters and that teamed with the idea of life being this blink-and-you-miss-it blur, leave us forever pining.

My Dad has always been very blasé about death. As a little baby who can't imagine ever feeling old enough to be without my parents, this used to upset me greatly (It still does! I can now just see where he is coming from, from a personal point of view.) Recently, whilst talking about how he was nearing the age when his mother passed, my mind had this moment of understanding and all those years of taking his attitude as indifference suddenly made it read more as a feeling of being content. It's not that he didn't care about dying, it's just that he had accepted it is a thing that we all encounter and instead of fearing it, he brushed it off with an, "it's not my time yet" attitude and went about living. Playing golf as much as possible, relishing in the beauty of a Friday afternoon, buying useless power tools to affectionately name and adore and sustain himself on a diet made up mainly of steak, sausages and fries, because why waste time on foods you don't like eating. I've never met a person who was more adamant about filling their days with the simple things that made them happy, even if it was ridiculous things like not allowing food to touch on a plate or never eating a fry with any kind of beauty mark upon it's perfect potato-y surface. I respect that (Also I've noticed these last few are heavily food related...I'm super hungry...my bad).

Our buzzer could sound tomorrow morning, and tonight instead of being happy in the right now we are longing for the next. The saddest part is that the things we force ourselves to regret are the fun things! Cake is amazing, skipping work for adventures or stupidity is fun sometimes....do that stuff. Sprinkle in a few bad boys and life is good, man.

Sure, I have dreams and aspirations but they aren't going to break me if I fail to meet up with them along the way. My end goal is right now. I could get struck by lightning or my heart could simply stop beating in one hour and that would be that. I wouldn't have regret because that was what I was dealt, and the good parts of the day, those that are happening as we speak and the moments I reflect on with fondness were utterly amazing and that is what's important.

What you have should always be more important than what you want.

Oh look my wines all gone.