Dad

Friday night conversations #1 Red Sonja

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With so much time on our hands now, and being physically removed from most of civilisation, I thought it beneficial that we should still connect… we should still talk.

Insert, Friday night conversations.

Let’s have a chat about a different, totally random thing every Friday night. (Totally open to suggestions for each Friday too).

Tonight’s theme… “what movie scarred you as a child?”

How the hell did I come up with this topic you might ask? Well on cold and windy nights like tonight, we end up indulging in a movie on telly more often than not… and Hubbie just happens to be thoroughly engaged with Rambo II, right now as we speak…

Every time I say something, he’s like “hold on…”

And I am just holding on to my every thought, like ALL NIGHT.

Seeing Rambo trawl through jungles, get electrocuted, and then shoot automatics in revenge, reminds me of all those 80s movies we watched growing up, along with other chiselled six-pack ab legends like Arnie, and then suddenly…

Red Sonja flashed before me in a horribly bittersweet way.

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Because sure, it was from my childhood and I have great memories growing up… but my Dad had taped it on VHS, off the TV! Yes, back in those days. I was about baby girl’s age, 6 or so, and I saw these horrific things unfold, like a woman being thrown down a well and squashed to death (or that’s how it appeared to me anyway) and though I was petrified I still continued to watch it, over and over and over again.

Why was I allowed to even watch it anyway??? (80s babies!)

I wouldn’t even know what the story is about. All I remember is that Arnold Schwarzenegger was in it, and I didn’t even realise ’til this moment that Brigitte Nielsen was in the starring role.

That is my story. So tell me, what childhood movie scarred you in a really horrible, funny or weird way???

 

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You should know her name

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There’s something that I want to share at this late hour.

I want to tell the short story, or rather, the little set-up as it were, of how my Mum and Dad came to know each other.

How their families got to know each other. The Ks, and the Gs.

My Mum would visit one of her older sisters who lived with her then-husband in a village that wasn’t quite next door to hers. It took considerable effort to go there, and yet she did visit, and often stay there too.

Do you know who lived across the road from my Mum’s sister?

My Dad. My Dad and his family.

Due to this lovely set up, the Ks and Gs knew of each other and were well-acquainted for a long time. As it is in small villages. Sure the families were spread out and there was a lot more siblings behind my Mum and her sister for the Gs to even start to comprehend… and yet as things are in those places, from those times, of that age… everyone knows everyone.

When my Mum and Dad finally did start to date, they did so for only 2 weeks. They had known of each other for many more years before. But 2 weeks later and there was a wedding celebration happening across the road from where my Mum used to visit her older sister.

♥♥♥

And this is all well and sweet, but sadly this post isn’t only about that beautiful time of my parents’ union. I write this because my Aunty has died. My Mum’s older sister passed away, and we only found this out today, but to be honest she may have been gone for days and no one was to know, she was living on her own and only found after someone had to break into her home when she didn’t answer.

What makes me happy is my Mum telling me tonight that she had spoken to her sister only last week. I am sure my Mum had some sign, as she always does with these things… she had a feeling and followed that feeling, and fortunately spoke to her older sister one last time.

But also, this all makes me terribly sad. Because apart from the whole death factor, I can’t help feeling like if she had passed away here in Australia, things would be a whole lot different. Firstly, people would care more. They would actually give a fuck that an older generation of their family that frankly they would not be here without, had passed. They would pay proper tribute. They would think, and pay respects, and give thanks for her presence in their life.

I honestly…. I met her once. In my whole life I met this Aunty once. But I have a tremendous amount of respect for her, from hearing about her through my Mum, and also, knowing what her presence did for my future, and how my parents came to be together…

It just sucks. She was old, and people will say she was old, and that her time had come…

But it still sucks. She still deserves some fanfare. She had a hard life, she had to witness many people die around her including her own son, and then to be reduced, to this?

To be found, on her own? Is that it?

And so while I see people celebrating Orthodox Easter and posting about eggs and chocolate, I just had to do my bit…

There will always be eggs. There will always be chocolate.

But there won’t always be the woman who introduced your parents to each other.

R.I.P.

M.G., 2019.

 

 

 

Things that shit me… #11

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Hate is a strong word. I try to avoid using it.

So instead I will begin with this:

“How do I intensely dislike thee July? Let me count the ways.”

  1. My Mum was told she would have to have an operation.
  2. Then she was told she doesn’t have to have an operation, but she was nonetheless stressed beyond belief with the recognition that her life had to change.
  3. Because of her health and this life change, everyone’s lives have now been impacted, including mine, Hubbie’s and baby girl’s, and she and my Dad cannot babysit baby girl when I go to work.
  4. Because they cannot babysit anymore, my babysitting arrangements have had to drastically change and now I am stressed beyond belief over how she will cope.
  5. I feel like I have lost a part of my parents.
  6. On another note, I had a major repair to my new car! Hooray!
  7. It’s still not 100%.
  8. I have been sick.
  9. Baby girl has been sick.
  10. Hubbie is still sick.
  11. Baby girl has developed some kind of ear ache that flairs up whenever it wants to, as a side effect of her cold.
  12. It has been really cold.
  13. I am cramping at this moment at 10:17pm July 31st mother f*&ker.
  14. I have had many decent cries and sobs this month, including tonight.
  15. I have heard of two relationships ending this month, both long-term serious ones, and one of them involved children.
  16. Other people I know have had issues with personal stuff and their family life, so its not just me folks. I think the planets were screwing with us all this month.

I actually think I’ve forgotten stuff, but this is just the initial list that springs to mind. By highlighting all this July-crap, I have in effect reversed the efforts of my carcrashgratitude blog, where I have also written about the crapola month that has been July.

Funny writing about something that’s annoying you as an item of gratitude, right?

It’s called Balance.

GOODBYE JULY. You shit me.

You can FLY!

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Something to think about on the very eve of this Christmas Eve.

I came across this on facebook a while back. I immediately fell in love with the thought.

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It’s a fairly simple, inspirational sentiment. It plays on that voice we all have, that inner-critic, that doubtful, insecure part of us that just doesn’t know, just isn’t sure, and is just scared. Scared to try. Scared to fail. Scared to fall.

I have a fear of falling. I have a fear of steep inclines. Through much in-depth research via family recollections, I think it may have originated from an incident that occurred when I was a toddler, and went stumbling all the way down the flight of stairs we have leading to our back yard. Dad says, despite my fall, I ended up with no scratches on me.

It took a lot of willpower when I first went skiing years ago. I tackled the easy slope in a heartbeat, and after half an hour was bored of doing the same trek up, the same basic ski down… until my sister pointed me to the next, devastatingly scary slope. It was very steep, for me as a beginner anyway. Seeing how far down I had to ski, at that angle, terrified me to no end. Even now, I don’t know how I did it. Was it my teenage no-care guts? The fact that it was this, or the boring slope? Or her words to me: “Don’t look ahead. Just stare immediately in front of you, and it won’t seem so scary when you’re skiing down.”

Her advice worked. I fell a couple of times, yes, totally stacking it when I ‘accidentally on purpose’ looked ahead and quite frankly, shit myself. But it was nothing insane. I fell. Got tangled in my skis. Struggled getting up at times, but each time, I got up. And then, I skied down again. And I got better at it.

We all have that fear in us, of failing, of falling. The sad thing is when that fear actually takes over, and disables us, paralysing us into no action. That is a terrifying concept. Staying where you are, static and unchanging, because of your fear that you will not make it.

We need to take that chance. Really, there is nothing to lose. The worst that will happen is you will have to try, and try again. Not doing anything won’t bring you closer to what you want, so really, all you really do is GAIN from the experience. At the very least you come out with more courage, capability and in some cases, a great story to tell in hindsight.

You know what I really love about the above poster?

‘But baby, what if you fly!’

!

There is no question, despite the second part being an oppositional thought to the first. There is no question of flying. It is just such:

‘fly!’

Nothing but an exclamation of thought.

You will fly!

Mortality at 5

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Finite Creatures

I’ve always wanted to do one of these Daily Post prompts, but no one idea suggested there has ever spoken to me like this one. I may be a couple days late, but I don’t really care. I like the topic. Well, I don’t like it, but it speaks to me.

Hubbie and I were talking about this very thing the other day: death.

It’s not something unfamiliar in our house, especially with the fairly recent loss of a loved one.

I was telling Hubbie about one of my earlier memories. I was about 4 or 5, and had just gone to bed, with my lamp light shining softly beside me. My parents were still up and about, doing those night time things that parents do, that I now do at the end of the day: cleaning, tidying up, preparing for tomorrow. Amidst all this, I started to cry, really heavily.

My Dad came in. And when he asked me what was wrong, I said “I don’t want to die.”

I don’t remember what prompted this sudden outburst of sadness, of desperation to cling to life forever. I was crying, sad that one day I was gonna die, sad that one day my parents were gonna die. I don’t know if I’d just seen something in a movie, whether my parents had been to a funeral that day, or what. What I remember quite clearly though, despite the many years between then and now, was the sinking, agonising feeling, the realisation that one day it would all be over. My Dad tried to comfort me, and eventually I fell asleep, feeling helpless.

Imagining life without your loved ones is heartbreaking. Imagining life, where you’re not in it… is mind-boggling. Death is something we don’t understand, and many people don’t want to. Yet it’s something we will all experience, as we witness loved ones leave, and then eventually, we will be the star that ends our own show.

My take on it has always been the same. Glass half-full gal here now, but I’ve always believed there is another side. Life after death, where our soul continues, our body having been left behind on earth. In earth. You can say it’s a coping mechanism, you can say I have no proof, you can say it’s a load of bull.

And you may be right. But it’s what I believe. And it helps me to turn off my lamp light at night.