On the day I found out my dad had a year to live, I was standing at work, typing away stupidly about something I can’t remember now. And in an instant, I was catapulted into a terrible grief I knew nothing about. Like a dark room I’d never entered, feeling my way around. Gemma called my boss, my colleagues, and my best friends. Ordering one to give me time off, to get coffee, and to buy moving boxes. In the apartment, I couldn’t even remember my own name. Gemma found my passport, called my sister and arranged a pick up, and booked my flight for the next morning. Early but not too early, because she said I needed sleep. How do I even begin to pack right now? Gemma told everyone what to do. She put on my favourite songs, Taylor Swift, whom she didn’t particularly care for, and made the executive decision to toss my near-empty shampoo bottles. We walked through a handful of outfits I’d need - certainly comfy ones - as Gemma proposed. And when I’d come back to collect my t...
I sometimes wonder if she knows I heard she’d said this about me. It’s remarkable how someone I don’t think twice about can find something like this to say about me. Point 1: “nothing to be depressed about” You should always leave your hometown - doesn’t have to be forever. The reason being: you will never outgrow the reputation you gave yourself as a shitty high school teenager with some (probably undiagnosed) serious depression and attitude problems. Because truly, I think then, maybe I didn’t have anything to be depressed about. It’s subjective I guess, it feels bigger when you’re in it. At that time I think my major problem was outgrowing a big relationship in my life and a car accident that accidentally traumatized me for several years. I get that this is normal people stuff now. But I didn’t then. And it rocked me. It’s the whole reason I started writing this blog in the first place! I also think back then I might’ve had a lot of bad things to say at that time too. It’...