The other day I was lamenting alllllll of the things that I’m not doing so well at: buying too much stuff, not exercising enough, feeling like I never have enough time. Etcetera etcetera and blahblahblah.  I went on and on with this moaning monologue, carrying on about how this must all stem from some unmet need of mine, perhaps from my childhood or adolescence, perhaps because I don’t feel like I do enough, achieve enough, be enough.  That I am not enough.  Or something.

My friend was kind and looked at me as if she was listening.  For quite a while.

Then she said, “Just stop it then.”

What?

“Just stop buying stuff.  Stop doing so much.  Stop talking about imaginary exercise you haven’t done, and do some actual exercise.”

What?

“You can change your mind and your life in a heartbeat if you really want to, so do it.”

What?

“Do you want to live the life you want, or whine about the one you wish you had?  If you really want to do something, do it.  If you don’t, don’t.  Not what you think you should. What you think you would.”

What?

“And don’t blame some thing in your past, that’s just a habit that you keep on reinforcing.  Don’t think these behaviours stem from some deficiency or defect within you, that there is something making you do, or not do, these things.  You are choosing, or sometimes, not choosing, in which case you are still choosing, by default.”

What?

“You can live your life looking ahead, or by trying to steer, looking only in your rear-view mirror, it’s your choice that makes it so, and nothing else.  There is no mysterious force propelling you to perform.  There’s just you.  And your mind.”

Well.I.Never.

And then another friend showed me this tonight (clearly my friends are not feeling like friends, but like underpaid shrinks)- I think you might like to watch it.  I laughed.  Snort laughs and proper laughs too.  I laughed because it is funny, and tried not to laugh so much, because it’s true.

“Stop it.”

You might hear me say that once or twice in the weeks and months ahead.  Please feel free to say it back, if you sense one of my soliloquys coming on.    It’ll save you a good thirty-seven minutes of your life (cos aint nobody got time for dat).

What do you need to “stop it” about?

Could it really be that simple?

Today I had a massage, and something weird happened.  Not weird in a George-from-Seinfeld: “it moved” kind of way, but just weird for me.  Somehow, whilst she was unknotting my muscles, she untied something in my brain, and I now can’t seem to catch onto a thought properly.

Usually when it comes to the time of the evening when I sit to write the blog, my mind is sharp and pointy.

I have words jumping around and jostling like popcorn, all trying to pop onto the page at once.

There can be noise and television and talking and I just go into the page and tease those phrases into some kind of order.  And slash away at the lantana of the ones that don’t fit.

But not today.

Today nothing has been acute.  Everything has been hazy and fuzzy and blurred, and it’s probably lucky because I can’t quite shake the feeling of the void that opened up on the road outside my house yesterday and swallowed the life of a lady in a red car.

I went and looked at that road again today, to see if it was different to any other part of the road.

It wasn’t. Isn’t.

It’s just bitumen.

There is no way of knowing the exact spot that took her dreams and plans for Christmas and life away.

My day has been a series of images, like old vignette photos.

A day of instagram images: waving goodbye to the back of the bus carrying Nath’s Mum, the smile of the teacher as Liam gave her her present, Coco clutching her certificate on the stage, the twinkling chikkachikka of our Christmas lights, lasagne and salad arranged just so on a plate, Liam hunched over and strumming the guitar, Coco biting a Santa-red apple, sheets drying in the wind- caught mid gust, a teacup, the glossy cover of a book.

A day of frozen moments.  Disjointed and jarring, none related to the other.  A slideshow in my head that holds no meaning for anyone else but me.

Will the red car lady have a slideshow at her funeral?  What pictures will someone else choose, in order to say, “This is her, this is her life, this is who she is”?  How will they know what all those images mean?  Which colours to show?

I’m guessing they won’t.  Not really.

That hue is now lost to this world.

This morning around 7am we were spamming about the house, and just kind of Sunday drifting. The kids were getting hungry and the Mother-In-Law wanted to know what we were doing for breakfast.  Nathan wanted to go out and get a feed someplace lovely, since the sun had come out, but I wanted to stay home, because: lazy.  And on Sunday mornings I’m all about lazy.  Plus, when we stay home, Nath cooks a killer feast on the barbie with all the trimmings, and I sit and sip my coffee as time slows down.  Moments to cherish.

I put forward my stay-home argument, got my own way, and Nath hurumphed out onto that balcony to fry up the expected.

We heard a pretty loud bang from out near the road, but I put it down to someone’s outdoor furniture being moved around by the wind.  Or some other beige thing.

We went back to disparaging Daryl Braithwaite’s top 20 favourite songs on Maxx, and waiting for breakfast.

Then: sirens.  Lots of sirens.  Then a few more.  Then silence.

I went up onto our roof deck, and saw there was some kind of a bust up on the road.  I could see so many of the Sunday cyclists that clog the sharp curves of David Low Way on any given weekend, and assumed one of their number had gone for a slide.  Maybe dislocated a shoulder, broken a wrist.  Something painful enough for his mates to call for help, but of course nothing really serious.  I mean, it happened practically in my backyard.

We resumed our breakfast preparations.

Then: a helicopter.  Trying to land next to my back gate, but being bullied about by the wind.

We went out to have a closer look, and saw two cars scrunched up like discarded easter-egg wrappers.  Both facing in directions to defy the natural order of the roads.  The scene jarred.

There was nobody running around panicking.  No sense of drama, just all necks in extension, eyes to the skies, waiting for the helicopter to land.  There was nothing else to be done.  Just wait.  We sat on the footpath and watched.  An ant nipped my foot.  It hurt quite a bit.  I felt petulant whinging about it, but there wasn’t much else to say.  And it’s hard to say much over the beat of the chopper.  Words don’t mean as much when you see those whirring blades.  Guiltily glad/relieved that they aren’t spinning for you.

After a time, the helicopter did land, and I went inside, deciding I didn’t want to see, after all.  The crowd slowly dispersed.  Some, like me, left before the end of the movie, and others stayed to the final scenes, even though the plot was raw and unredemptive and you had to guess your own ending.

Turns out the story so far, is far from great.  Turns out someone died and some others are still in hospital.  Turns out some people were tootling along our road, maybe popping out for breakfast someplace lovely, just like we thought we might, and someone else just drove right into their faces.

I went and had a look at that bitumen.  I can’t see any skid marks from where their lives all turned, on the head of a pin.  I can’t stop thinking about all the funny, boring, nice, frustrating, lovely, yummy, annoying, interesting things that happened in my day today, and didn’t in theirs.

The worst thing that happened to me this day is that an ant bit me.  And it kind of hurt.

Vale, red car lady.

I hope that as you passed by our back gate, you were smiling at your girl and laughing at the day and loving that sunshine and singing with all your heart.

Today both kids stayed in bed ’til 5.30am.

Today they ate all of their breakfast without complaining or having to be told eighty-seven times to sit up and eat their eggs, or stop putting on so much salt, or stop teasing/copying/looking at each other.

Today they made their beds without being asked four million and six times.

Today they got dressed, brushed their teeth and their hair in a timely fashion without being asked once.

Today I got to see the Grade 3 ukulele concert, and it was surprisingly good.

Today I had a great day at work, with so many fantastic old patients, and one new one.

Today my husband had my dinner cooked and a glass of red poured when I came up after work.

Today I got to read a gorgeous snippet of what I hope will be a twitter friend’s best selling novel.

Today I had some bills to pay, and I got them paid.

Today the self-inflicted, dancing-induced sore neck that I have, wasn’t as bad.  It’s healing.

Today was a good day.

And I am grateful for good days such as these.

They might not be earth-shatteringly exciting, or full of portent, or meaning.  They may not even be the days I will remember when I look back on the blessed life I have led.  And for that I am grateful.  Because some days just need to be good days.  And that is enough.

“Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans.”  -John Lennon.

How was your day?

Did you have a good day?

I don’t really feel like writing a blog right now.

I just got some news that someone I care about has cancer.

Another one.

My Dad died of cancer.

Nath’s Dad died of cancer.

Nath had cancer.

Nath’s sister had cancer.

My Aunty died of cancer.

Two of my mates died of cancer.

Two of my patients died of cancer.

Another three of my patients had cancer.

Someone told me the other day that one in two people will have cancer.  I’m not sure if that’s right, it seems like quite a lot, but maybe it is, and maybe that’s why it feels so personal. Regardless, I’ve had enough.

So right now I’m gonna go give my sleeping kids a kiss, sit on my couch, hug my cancer-free husband, watch some Top Gear on the teev, eat some chocolate, drink a beer, and think about how lucky I am that my worst ailments are a blister on my toe and a bit of a sore finger that I suspect might be a bit over-worked. (Even though they are quite sore)

And cancer? You can fuck right off.

Today Liam asked what the silver wee-wall in the male toilets is called.  He wanted to know if it was also called a toilet.

Because I am truthful, and a wealth of information, I told him it was called a urinal and the reason why.  Sometimes, because I love words (and the sound of my own voice) so much, I may* tend to go on a bit with information.  Especially when we are in the car and they are strapped in tight, hurtling along at eighty clicks.

So, urine.  And then I added in faeces, just to round out the conversation.

But of course it didn’t stop there.  The little buggers wanted to know the “astronomical” words for “all of the body parts”.  I tried to steer the conversation in the direction of words like phalanges, sternum and clavicle, but I know they didn’t pay any attention. I could tell by the sniggers, that penis, vagina, labia and anus were much more interesting.

Conversation then went of the direction of changes the body undergoes during puberty. Luckily it’s a short car trip home. I may have had to slighty exceed the speed limit (but only if you aren’t a member of the local constabulary..if you are, I was on sitting on the limit the whole way) to avoid talking about anything menstrual.**

Just the other week, Coco came upstairs because Liam had called her a penis.  Not penis-breath, penis-head or penis-brain. Just penis.  So who knows what is going to happen at the next altercation, with all this newfound terminology.

This won’t end well.

Anyone else think it’s funny that their kids call Dick Caplick Park “Penis Playground”?

What do you call the private parts?

* Who are we kidding? I bloody run an the mouth like Cujo after a stroke.

** I have The Menopause, so I’m done with talking about all things womb related.

****Apologies to all the parents of my children’s friends. You may have some explaining to do.****