Wednesday 25 April 2012

Back in Black (but not for long)


So I've been missing awhile and then some, as life rather got on top of me. A lot of good has come from these silent months, sadly tempered by a little tragedy and this is to clear my mind for my future, which after I graduate University in June, will finally be my own to shape. As a result this post is not flowery, verbose or grandiose. These are just simple words to try and do justice to a very complex sadness.

  For anyone who has followed a while, you may be aware that my grandfather was unwell. Sadly he passed away on Feb 29th (an individual to the last dying on the leap day!) and we celebrated his life with family and The Inkspots, the java jive will always make me think of him singing while making coffee, a cuppacuppacuppacuppa cup.

It's been hard on all of my family, we're a close bunch and see each other most days, so it's still sinking in really. In the weeks since I've had a lot of time alone at uni to think over what his life has meant to me, and how I have been changed by his presence. At first I mourned the idea of living without him, of my wedding without him there, not knowing what he would have said about my agrees, kids or haircut. It took a while to realise that I will never have to do these things. My grandfather is present in everything I do, in every decision made, he has shaped me and I know exactly what he would say. Every time I ask myself how I will live without him, I just have to remind myself that I'll never have to.

 My only regret is being stuck hours away from the family as they knit back together. I thought I'd found surrogates to help me pick up the pieces but have found that as I crumbled, so to did the friendship I'd been counting on. It's hard to tell someone that you need them especially when you know that saying as much will make them feel awful, but if you don't ask you don't get. The problem is that when you ask and you still don't get you begin to realise that that relationship, whether out of disinterest, busyness or spite on the part of the other person, is not a true friendship but a support structure for them. It's hard to withdraw the support,but sometimes you have barely enough left to keep yourself standing.

 So when you fall, they can fall with you or just let you go. And if it's the latter, especially when barbed by poisonous words which to be spoken must first be thought, drunk or otherwise, it is all you can do not to throw poison back and to resign yourself to the fact that to keep being the person you want to be, you have to lose someone else who matters to you, and all of the things which you shared.

 In the last two months I've lost a father, a best friend, the respect of many, the freedom to enjoy my last months as a dancer and the opportunity to say many goodbyes. I'm holding on to my new beginning and getting through this last month in a dark place.

 Some people can never be forgotten.
Some words can never be forgiven.

 Right now I'm lonely, scared and miserable, but I know that it's got to get better. Last dark post. Promise. XX