You can do it, Duffy Moon. #2

My mam's voice trails off as my eyes adjust to what's on my phone screen. It's Gracie's blog, and her latest post is of a different tone. It's important, it's heartfelt and it must have taken a shitload of courage to write. I bite back tears reading it, for many, many reasons. The subject matter is unexpected. The writing itself is fucking beautiful. It's sincere. It's incredibly moving. It's thought-provoking. 

My grandma always says to me, when I'm in trouble, under pressure, suffering mind-numbing anxiety or totally breaking down, a little saying that brings a tear to the corner of my eye, and one I always remember when things get tough. It's this: "you can do it, Duffy Moon." 

It's more than a homely, affectionate pet-name for one of her many grandchildren. It's inspired. It's just knowing someone somewhere is sending you all the happy thoughts they could ever conjure up. So I'm passing the gesture, or the torch as it were. Today, someone else needs this happy thought. Someone I've never met and yet, feels like such an important person in my life for hundreds of reasons. 

A lovely individual, a very beautiful girl with an amazing passion for writing. We have so much in common, and I have a lot to thank her for. Especially, this blog she has encouraged me to write. In bad times, sometimes all you need is a happy word. Or a smile. Or a laugh, or a hug. Because of the distance between us, some of these things aren't possible. But this, Gracie baby, is for you. This may seem tough. It may all seem really dark at the moment. The walls may appear to be caving in around your beautiful head, but that's not true. You're amazing, and you can do anything. 

YOU CAN DO IT, DUFFY MOON. This thing, you can bloody well do it. I know it, Gracie. 

Making Ties.

making ties and breaking ties.

It's 10:04, it's Friday, it's 30th May (YES, WHAT? Where did May go?) and I'm screwed in every kinda sense. As I lie on my bed, seemingly the only neutral safe-house in my colossally-messy room. It's like a bomb hit twenty years ago, and the inhabitants just didn't clean up, ever. Holiday clothes are thrown around my four walls with reckless abandon, as if in a desperate attempt of artistic license, rather than the reality; that I'm being a slob.

So, where's my destination? The White Isle, of course. Cue the horrendous attempts to sing along to Vengaboys with alcoholic beverages in our clutches. Ibiza. Take two. It's funny. Last year was my first 'proper' girls holiday, and it's really weird to look back and realise the changes that have occurred. I've never really noticed, but, as I look back, a mere maybe 10 months, the changes appear crystal. My wide-eyed look comes to notice that said changes have crawled sneakily out of the woodwork of my life, and nestled themselves comfortably beside me.

This time last year, I probably could count my ties on one hand. As I was planning a holiday, everything went chaotic, and the strain was too much for some friendships to handle. While some ties were severed, others were made and celebrated. In that sense, I mean, the people I was really close to. The special people in my life. The ones I'd hold onto, not with entwined fingers, but clutched fists. The people I'd walk over broken glass for, run into a burning building to save, ultimately, the ones I was unprepared, and unwilling, to live without. Ten-(ish) months later, my ties are cemented in a truly different pattern. My friends are a different group of people. My close group of friends has expanded, and been truly tested through some bad times, as well as good. My ties seem to be barb-wired, rather than haphazardly flung together with frayed pieces of string.

I also have a really special tie. If it were a real, physical tie, in a suit-and-jacket-kinda-garment, it would be the brightest ever. The jazzy, jokey one. With some crazy pattern all over it, but not verging on garish. It would be the one you'd want to wear all the time, but it was expensive, so you sometimes think it should be kept in a fancy box in which it came. It's silk. It's gorgeous. It's the best fucking tie you've ever owned, and as you run the material through your fingers, the texture excites you in a way that nothing ever has before. It withstands all weathers, it doesn't fray or break. It's a constant. A feature you always want to show off. A tie everyone likes. And moreover, you love it. You love this tie more than anything. You trust this tie. With your life. Your family. Your hopes and dreams. Your tie knows more about you than you know about yourself. Your tie is wrapped in gold and you wear it around your neck with pride. With absolutely everything. Even if it doesn't go with that dress, obviously. It's sewn together with passion you can't even comprehend. But y'know the best thing about this tie? It's all yours.

Visionary.

       Peaceful, haunting, visionary.

We go home every day with memories filling up our pockets and photos hidden in our irises and no one ever seems to notice. The days pass and the nostalgia lies behind your eyelids and the important things lurch in the safety of your carefully entwined rib cage. The things we don't say are forcefully choked back; the things that were once on the tip of your tongue become uncomfortably lodged in your throat. The only truths we dare to whisper are in darkened rooms and through intoxicated pupils. You'd think it was more than that, visionary. 

forever the party animal, never the absentee.

                

I don't want to miss a single second of it. A breath, a smile, a grin or grimace. A tear resentfully shed. A punch-up, a drunken night, a brawl, a conversation, an inside joke. I have the ultimate bad habit. I have the Fear Of Missing Out. Symptoms of which include; not being able to say the word "no" forcefully or meaningfully, declining any social arrangements that will cost you money you simply don't have, or turning down an invitation just because you can't bare to miss out on the excitement. 

I hate it. I HATE staying in when all my friends are at the pub drinking vodka. I HATE having to decline invitations to things I really want to go to. I HATE the feeling of regret when everyone you know goes out/makes plans/does something without you, and spends a considerable, somewhat obscene, and not to mention, insensitive amounts of time talking and reminiscing about it. 

This is why I have no self control. I would rather I didn't get invited somewhere than knowing I'd have to decline the invite altogether. I need to work on that. I keep choosing tequila over essays and sambuca over studying. Uh-oh. 

Mortal.

A term that may mean different things to many of you. Up north, here in that somewhat forgotten land, where it rains almost on a loop and if there's three consecutive days that you don't have to wear a jacket, it's considered a heatwave. Well, up here, it means this. The following:

"To be extremely intoxicated, under the influence of alcohol."

Drunk, pissed, smashed, tipsy, wasted, ruined, wrecked, buckled, fucked, inebriated, tanked-up, sloshed, plastered, shit-faced, trashed, hammered, bladdered, blottoed, rat-arsed, trollied. Plain old drunk.

Whatever. We call it mortal. Getting so comfortably spaced out on a nice amount of alcohol that the edges of everything go fuzzy and fluffy and your speech slurs and your eyelids begin to weigh a tonne. You sit down and suddenly become all too aware of your legs feeling like jelly. Your movements seem to lag behind. Your mouth isn't functioning the way it should be. Words become harder to form, reactions slow and judgements are skewed. Tequila seems like a good idea. Singing at the top of your lungs really, REALLY badly seems like an even better idea. You suddenly latch on to strangers and loudly proclaim your immediate attachment to them. Awkward. Sometimes, it's horrific, it ends badly with lost property, lots of retching, no money and a stinking post-alcohol hangover. While other times, it's amazing. The photos and video document the constant hilarity of the nigt before. An empty purse and a sore head are a small price to pay for the blurred happy memories of 12 hours earlier. Your feet hurt from dancing too much and your throat is sore from singing to Mr Brightside at two am. 

Everyone experiences both kinds of drunk. Both kinds of mortal. But I'm varying towards the latter lately. Uni is done with. It's time to let my hair down, watch the sambuca get poured and get totally and utterly, and completely celebratorily MORTAL.