Surprising Myself

Last year at around this time my Mum decided to end her life. It might seem a bit weird that I'm phrasing it in that particular way, "decided to end her life", but I've struggled a lot with trying to find a suitable way of expressing the action. I hate it when people try to put it euphemistically by saying she died "tragically" or even worse, that she "passed on" or "passed away". I can't stand everything that "passed on" suggests: that it was 'just another step along the way', that it was somehow majestic or even beautiful; everything that it wasn't, basically. I also don't like saying it in a complete matter-of-fact way, because that can be pretty upsetting at times too. I think the way I've found to say it is very appropriate; honest, definite, but not going into unnecessary detail and not prettying it up.

That's something that I've put a bit of thought into, but it's veering off the point a bit, so I'll continue. The anniversary of her death is coming up later this month, but it hasn't really been bothering me as much as I thought it might. In fact, I wasn't even thinking about it at all until a few nights ago, when it came up as a matter of practicality. Dad and Granny want the engraving on her gravestone to be done before the anniversary, and my sis C and I were given a draft of the text as written by my Granny to look over. Dad was clearly not pleased with the way Granny had phrased it and the reason for this was very obvious to both of us immediately, so he was hoping for us to feed him back his own opinion on it.

At first I didn't really care about it; I was pretty exhausted at the time. I liked Dad's version a lot more than I did Granny's, so I just told him whatever they decided was fine. In any case, all that stuff -visiting the grave with flowers and looking at the lovely inscription etc.- never seemed important to me in the slightest, completely detached as it is from my Mum. He told C and I to think about it for a few days and come back to him. And sure enough, over those few days as I turned the thing over and over in my mind I started to find that no, I wasn't that pleased with either version of things. Typical. When he came back to me last night, I completely surprised myself by getting pretty fired up about it. I said that I wouldn't let Granny pick an engraving that we wouldn't all agree on and that I wouldn't concede even a single word. Despite my dad agreeing with a version that I had come up with completely, he rather pathetically suggested that we " compromise" over the issue, that we should "pick our battles". Bollox to that! After all, C and I are going to be looking at whatever inscription we choose for a lot longer than either Dad or Granny. "But Granny is old, it's hard for her". "She's only thinking of Mum". Those were Dad's two main points on the issue, the former of which is just an equivocation that Granny might use to justify herself but not one I'll be fooled by, and the latter is just not true. So in the end, I told Dad this is what we want, tell Granny that, and we can discuss things with her if she wants, and if she doesn't like it she can piss off(except maybe not that last part).

Oh, and I surprised myself again today by having a really great audition for our school's music competition (I play the piano), on the kind of occasion where I usually fall apart horribly and scream abuse at the piano, which doesn't usually win me many gold stars...Roll on the final!

A Schoolboy Error

Spent the whole day kicking myself under the desk that I hadn't taken the day off school.

I failed to mention it, but the reason I had enough time to write such an extensive (the wrong word to use...it implies I got so much "material" "covered") blog the first time around, not to mention reading plenty of my old piano teacher's blog (figured it out!) was because I was at home all day with a sore throat that wouldn't quit. Every time that I tried to eat/drink/speak/breath it would rear its ugly head and spit phlegm at me. Despite being happy about starting the blog and all I had a pretty boring day... so today I decided to give my mild illness the finger and go into school anyway.

What a mistake that was. Most of the day I was choking down strepsils or wheezing uncontrollably, and in the rare moments where that subsided I was assaulted with the work I hadn't done from yesterday. Not too fun, I assure you. The worst part was feeling like a stereotypical selfish sick patient when people were speaking to me and I'd have to keep saying 'what???' or just losing interest because my own coughing and 'aches and pains' were more enthralling.. Some people were not amused. But on that note, who's it up to say how much self-involvedness is ok when you're going through something bad? when you don't feel well, do whatever you can do to feel better, that's what I say. So, what I'm really saying is that I should have just stayed at home... Gona go drown myself in lemsip, see if that does any good...

It Begins....

Let me start by warning you not to let that title fool you...While it might suggest that something epic is on the way, I'm sure that for a least the first couple of entries this blog will consist of nothing more than padded promises that the quality of the writing and the relevancy of the content will indeed get better. Hopefully soon I'll get some perspective myself on where this thing might be headed. For now, just try to sit through this painful beginning and perhaps you'll be rewarded sometime in the future for your patience...jesus I'm already assuming that someone, somewhere will chance upon this site and that, against all the odds, they'll take a shine to it, based on their impression of the first couple of lines, which looking back really aren't very good. I'm sure I can count on my friends to act as my loyal readership: Lisa at least will read it, as it was she who finally pushed me over the edge of my boredom into starting this, and as it stands she spends too much time on the internet not to end up reading it.

If you had told me a week ago that right now I'd be sitting here typing away at my brand spanking new blog I'd probably have laughed cruelly in your face and judged you forever for making such an ill-advised and inaccurate forecast of what I might be likely to do at any given time. Stupid person I'd have said. Well if that had been the case it would now be they, not I, who would be laughing cruelly and feasting greedily on sweet success, which in this context I will imagine as a delicious chocolate cake, while I skulk around the edges of the room, nibbling sullenly on my piece of bitter humble pie.
To tell the truth I never thought much of blogs; just the result of thousands of people who all believe they have some nice insight to make on life and who honestly believe that not broadcasting their utterly original and groundbreaking views to the world would be doing a disservice to the human race. What turned my opinion around was the chance encounter last week with the blog of my old piano teacher of 7 years upon which I stumbled while googling a book that she has recently published. I started to read the latest entries, which were all about the book I had been originally researching, and it really caught my interest.
Over the next few days I read back through the last year of her life, more out of interest of what she had been up to since she was no longer my teacher than anything else. After a long time spent reading her blog I found myself viewing blogs in a whole different light. My teacher herself said something very interesting about blogs with which I now completely agree:

"I think that’s one of the ways in which blogging is truly revolutionary – the fact that you can now get a first-hand insight into how certain events and situations affect people’s lives. It’s a job that was previously left up to authors, playwrights and scriptwriters and that usually meant compressing the information into a specific format. Now people can read about almost any issue, no matter how difficult or personal, as it happens and in whatever format or style the author wishes."

I'm not too sure how to work links just yet but once I work it out I will attribute that piece to its rightful claimer. I'm not sure if that will mean anything to anyone reading this, but after having followed my old piano teacher through the ups and downs of the past year of her life I can now safely say that I understand her better than I did even after having known her for 7 years, albeit as a semi-formal student in his teens, and that I would be more understanding of others who have had similar experiences to her were I to meet them. But most important of all, reading it has taught me to respect the blog's ability to share how a person feels to the world in a way that can't be denied or written off, because it's not like spoken words that can be delivered poorly or twisted or forgotten , it's staring at you in a back and white, no matter how many times you press the refresh button.

So....................self-explanatory bit over with. I think I'll leave it at that for my first blog entry (even saying that feels wrong....My old prejudices are obviously not going without a fight). Oh, and because it's my first one: I promise it'll get better soon!.............lol!