Month: May 2017

You’re driving.
You are so used to the road ahead of you.
You’ve driven it hundreds of times.
Your eyes lose focus.
Your hands automatically know which way to steer the wheel.
Feet know exactly when to brake.

Your favourite song comes on; mindlessly mumbling along to it.

You’re lost.

You’re lost in thought.

Moments you had forgotten.
Suddenly they are replaying in your head, as if they happened yesterday.
Feelings you only feel when you’re back in this place. Back on this road.

How does a place bring so much nostalgia?

You stop the car.
Refocus your eyes.
Wait for the right moment in the song to turn the car off.

“How did I manage to get here safely?”

You’re so used to the road you’ve driven hundreds of times.

“I do not remember that trip at all.”

You sit in the car for a moment.
Open the door, and look up.
How is it so mesmerising every time?
So many stars.

You stand there for a few moments.
All you can hear is nature and the sound of your own breath.
The crunch of your shoe on the gravel.

You breathe it in.
You know you’ve made it.

Home.

I have written and re-written the words I want to accompany this quote. It was the kind that hit me right in the heart, that resonated so much that I read it over and over again. The kind where you exclaim ‘fuck’ out loud because it rings so true.
I’ve lost count of the amount of times people have senselessly thrown the phrase toward those it doesn’t apply to.
And I found the easiest way to try and get people to understand is to just read my feelings. No jokes, no poetic justice. Just words.

My mum was my best friend. I told her (almost) everything, so much so that my friends would tell me a secret and follow it with, ‘don’t tell anyone, even your mum.’
She knew when people hurt me and she could usually pinpoint who, without me even saying a word. She could see through my facade at 16 years old, when I had begun to think maybe I should keep my feelings away from home. (That lasted all of about 40 minutes after I got off the bus).

She was open about sex, bodies, love and life. She made me feel safe and so, so loved.

She managed to make all five of her children feel the exact same way.

I knew I was lucky to have my mum for as long as I can remember. I counted my lucky stars every day to have her by my side. I knew, I know, what I have and what I had was special.

I was five when she first battled cancer. Some of my earliest, and worst, memories come from the time she spent in hospital – the first time we’d truly been apart – I was in Kindergarten and I would cry at school because I just. Wanted. My mum. Maybe that memory was what created the bond that I don’t have the words to explain.

I was 17 when she was diagnosed again. I still remember where every member of my family was standing in the living room. Minutes before we had been laughing together. Seconds later we were holding each other, ugly crying our faces off, as if bringing our bodies closer together could fix it.

If love alone could have saved you, you never would have died.

For weeks, all I can remember thinking was ‘why us?’ And then, ‘why her?’
Out of all the fucking people in this whole god-damned world. Why her?

I didn’t know anyone less deserving.
She was a ray of light, a sparkle. One of those selfless, ‘every day’ people who made a differences in the lives of those who were lucky enough to meet her. With the most wicked sense of humour and one of those laughs that makes everyone happy to hear.

She was rare. And so beautiful.

She could make you laugh in your darkest moments, and was still making everyone else laugh in hers.

When she was diagnosed, my relationship with her didn’t change. Because it didn’t need to. I didn’t need her to be sick to be able to cherish her. I already did that.

I would listen to people bitch about their parents and all I wanted to do was grab their heads and scream in their faces. YOU DON’T KNOW HOW LUCKY YOU ARE.

The week leading up to it was weird. Because I still knew what I had and how lucky I was to have it. Is this actually happening? Was all I would think. Surely she won’t actually be taken from us? Wasn’t it all just some cruel joke? But I can’t do life without her! I can’t! I don’t know how and I don’t want to!

Some people don’t even encounter a love like that in one lifetime.

It was hard because that’s when everyone else was coming out of the woodworks. The ones who that quote is made for. The ones who didn’t know, or just simply took for granted, what they had in knowing a woman like her.

I was mad. I was so, so mad. I wanted to tell them all to fuck right off, to leave us alone. How dare you steal our last moments? We’ve known what we had all along!

I always knew what I had.
And I know exactly what I have.
Some may warrant my thoughts unfair, uncalled for, selfish, debatable.

But the thing is, the hardest pill to swallow – she didn’t deserve to go so soon, because she didn’t take life for granted. Life had thrown her curveballs that most of us couldn’t even fathom dealing with, let alone living through. She deserved the long, happy, healthy life that so many do take for granted.

We knew that we had a best friend, the most beautiful woman in the world. But she still had her whole life to live. Children, in-laws, grandchildren. Fun, laughter, hope. She was still being taken. There wasn’t one single fucking thing that we could do about it.

But I never took a fucking thing for granted, and she was taken away.
And that, some days, is the hardest reality to face.

This sucks to say, hear and feel.

But sometimes, to some people, you are just the flavour of the month. You may be pushed aside when they find a new flavour.
In particular, I am a strawberry sunshine fairy floss rainbow sprinkles flavoured marshmallow; a very much acquired taste. Some prefer just plain old vanilla ice cream, and that’s okay.

You are going to meet people in life and you will have this moment. A moment where you’re like, “Oh, my God. These are my people. I have found my people.”

Everything will be hunky-dory, happy-go-lucky. For a while.
And then it turns out that they, in fact, are not your people at all.
This could happen a month, 6 months, a year, two years… anytime, down the track.
You’ll just end up losing the group of friends, ‘your people’.

Be it time, break ups, unrequited love, unrequited lust, uncontrollable lust (ain’t that a killer), new people, or just simply, and most common; the big revelation, shock horror: people change.

It will hurt for a bit. It may hurt for a while. But then it won’t, and you’ll meet new people. Maybe you’ll find a big group, and fit right in, and you really will have found your people.

Or maybe, along the way, you’ll be lucky enough like me.
You’ll have your people.
They may not be what you envisioned, or what you envy, or what you think you lack. Not a big group that hangs out at the local coffee shop all day (when the fuck are the FRIENDS cast ever at work?), but they’ll be yours.

You don’t have to keep in contact every day, every week, or even every fortnight. You understand that time and adulthood gets in the way. That life gets in the way.

You’ll have the ones overseas, the ones across the country, in other states… the ones down the road, in your very own home, the ones you’re convinced are your soul mates. The ones who know your demons, your secrets, you at your absolute worst. Hell, even the ones on the internet. (Shout out to ma instababes).

You’ll pick them up along the way and you will always be their flavour.
And they will always be your people.

You know, I think the crucial thing is that, while they’re still around, you think “I could not survive without you.” 

But you can, and you will.

And for a long time I kept thinking,

“I’m still doing this because of you,” and, “I’m only coping because I need to, for you.”

Then one day it changed. I realised that I was coping because I needed to, for me. 

You had taught me as much as you were going to teach me while you were here, but I was only really learning from it while you were gone. 

You had planted a seed of strength inside of me; it was just up to me to let it grow. So I did. And I still am. And I forever will be.

Because we were placed on this earth to live life for ourselves and ourselves only. But we are blessed when we find people, are bounded by and with people, create people – that give us a reason to keep going. A reason to live. Hoping you can be their reason, too.

There’s a future version of me who is proud I was strong enough.
And she looks an awful lot like you.

Better an ‘oops’ than a ‘what if?’

Every single human on the face of the earth have made mistakes. Some, a simpel spelling mistake (hehe). Some, probably accidentally killed someone. They are part of human nature. (Mistakes, not murder).

Why do we beat ourselves up (literally and figuratively) (I’ve been known to kick things, thus injuring my poor, innocent little ankles), when we make a mistake? Hurt ourselves with overthinking and regret? Regret. I hate that word. Even the spelling of it is ugly. Regret.

When you have those late nights, your body is aching for sleep, and your mind decides it’s a good time to do a play-by-play of your most cringeworthy moments.

Sometimes the memories make you feel ill, sometimes they make you cry. Sometimes they make you piss yourself laughing in the middle of the night, in the dark, when you’re all alone.

I’ve made my fair share of dumb decisions. You know those ones that you just hope you’re going to get away with, that by some tiny little miracle, no one will know what you’ve done? And then, when they do find out, people have the audacity to say,

“What the hell were you thinking?”

And it’s like, well fuck me, obviously I was thinking I was going to get away with it and not have to explain myself.

Why Did I Do That? a novel by me, with special guest appearances by several alcoholic beverages

 

It got to a point where I got more yolo than I ever intended to be, because despite my bouts of crippling anxiety, I also had bouts of nah fuck it’s, thinking will these decisions make a difference in 5, 10, 15 years time?

I mean, potentially could ruin my future kids’ lives because paranoia from consequences…

But also, could potentially just be another classic laugh from Granny Rackers in the year 2064.

Refer back to rackers’ life tips: part 4 (legitimately a year ago) (where the fuck did that time go), point #7:
“a choice is a choice and once the choice is done the choice is chosen n u cannot change the choice so GET THE FUCK OVER IT AND if u really hate that choice then make BETTER choices and everything will be ok.”

I mean, I probably couldn’t have written it better myself.
ALSO rackers’ life tips: part 7, point #7:
“yeh nah mum used to be like ‘you’ll regret the things you didn’t do more than the things you did’ and I’d be like ‘nah but mum what if I really fucked up’ and now I realise that there is legitimately no point in a regret if it is what you wanted to do at the time, even if it was ridiculously stupid, yolo the fuck out of your life.”

Summed up: yolo.

In the grand scheme of things, there’s literally nothing you can do once you’ve acted upon something, besides wait for repercussions (if there are any), or just move the fuck on.

Always better an ‘oops’ than a ‘what if?’.

Just don’t kill anyone.

Along with the first hate mail I received a few weeks back (!!!) (you know you’re going places when people care enough to tell you how much they don’t like you), I also got my first advice-mail! I’m like a regular old Dear Dolly.
We’ll have to think up a name for an ‘advice column’, if you’d like. (You probably don’t like, I can sense the ‘shut up Racquel you are not a legitimate columnist‘ vibes from here). It needs to be cooler than ‘Dear Rackers’, or ‘Ask Rackers’. *TAKING SUGGESTIONS*

Following on from my ‘ideals‘ post, (from which I had some great reviews – yippee!) I had a friend ask me to dip my toe into talking about heartbreak.

Now, look, before you all throw on your fur coat, jump on your high horse, and proclaim ‘What would she know?!‘, I’ll have you know that I have dealt with heartbreak. Just not so much in the romantic sense.

(In the romantic sense, I’ve only ever really dealt with an overly bruised ego).

Heartbreak can sometimes be prolonged because of what I talked about in ‘ideals’ –

“But then your mind does this weird little trick – ‘let’s forget about all the things that were telling me that they were not for me!’, ‘Noooo remember all those good times!’, ‘What do you meeeean they hurt your feelings?'”

In particular, your mind fixates on ‘Noooo remember all those good times!’.

You paint a picture of how someone was so you can justify missing their presence and the way they made you feel.
Cue mind playing tricks, and you somehow only manage to remember the really, really good times – almost completely forgetting the gut-wrenching, heart-string-pulling, is-that-lump-in-my-throat-bile-or-did-I-somehow-swallow-glass? moments.

You got so used to picturing your future with them that you don’t know how to imagine it anymore.

You’re missing something.
There’s a piece of you that you just can’t find anymore.
It feels like a vital organ has been hastily removed from your body.

You’re just a little bit empty.

What I know of heartbreak comes through a piece I wrote at the age of nineteen, when my whole world was ripped out from under my feet.

have you ever missed someone
even before they were gone?
have you ever thought
I miss them so
only to think
but they are still here?

have you ever known it was the end
before the end even came?
have you ever watched the end
crashing down like a heavy weight on your heart,
right in front of your eyes?

the fight.
the battle.
the stress.
and hard enough to admit,
the relief.

there is no more pain.

but that is not true.

the pain never goes away –
it seeps into different beings
it’s disguised
a different pain.

a new pain.

You become accustomed to the pain, the heartache, the tears at 2am.
The lost feeling when you awaken, having just seen them in your dream.
The moment you realise that you can no longer hear their laugh on demand.

But I can tell you this –
That, although they will never, ever, be replaced – your heart is big enough to fit more people in, if you will allow it.
That, although you feel as if you are missing a vital organ, you are still breathing.

I will not compare the heartbreak that I have felt to the heartbreak you have felt.
And I hope for your own sanity, no one is saying ‘I know how you feel.’
But I will let you know,

You are not alone
in this world.