A visit to gran-ma's

I went to see my Gran yesterday.
First time in about 7 months. Terrible I know.
More so as she only lives a 5 minute walk away :-/

Anyway - i'm so glad I decided to go.

She's a fantastically funny old bird and I have to say - i've become quite fond of her over the years.

As young children, we weren't very close to my gran and we saw her very in frequently.. This I now understand to be due largely to my own mother being suck a fuck wit, that she had pushed the family away from us. My sister and I just thought they didn't like us. There were never any christmas cards or pocket money or presents on birthdays.... All our cousins got them, we didn't.

They seemed a whole world away from us.

It's only as i've got older that I realise how important she is.
The matriarch of the family. 4 children, 12 grandkids, 4 great gran kids... and a million other relo's on her own side...

I still do not get on with my own mother, haven't spoken to her for over 13 years now (believe me its easier that way). But my gran is something different.

Although I call her granny - I weirdly still don't feel an intense bond to her if that makes any sense? I almost think of her as a funny old woman who is in somehow my life... but I don't entirely get why. Of course there's the connection and she's my mothers mum, i get that, but in the same way I've never bonded with my mother I feel the same about my gran. But I am very fond of her. I'd totally miss her if she was gone.

This is probably really quite hard for someone who has a 'normal' ish family life to understand.

But the only way I can break it down is like as if there was a broken connection somehow... Still in touch, still in the same area but the connection is not quite fully connected.

Anyway - she cheered me up no end.

She must be in her early 70's - she's a typical Jamaican lady (accent and all) - and when she talks to her friends (this funny british accent emerges that cracks me up)... She had to tell her friend (the pensioner upstairs) that she wasn't going to Bingo today (she goes EVERY DAY btw that's her vice) - she also wanted to show off that her grand daughter had popped in to see her as well.... I was smiling to myself.... thinking where the fuck did that accent come from?

She closes the window and resumes the normal jamaican accent as if nothing had ever happened.

Here's what I love about her:

She's funny and witty.
She has an amazing smile.
She has a lot of friends.
She pulls stupid faces like i do when trying to make her points
She gasps at things, actually gasps - that's pretty fecking funny in my books
She's generous and kind.
She feels pain but keeps quiet about it (sound like anyone you know?)
She likes a good gossip (i'm starting to see where i get it from)
She has AMAZING skin - like AMAZING!!!!! She's concluded her good skin and good health comes from the trees around her and that they breathe new life into her (she may be right!).
She's happy with the small things in life. Me too.

She really made my day.
She made me smile and feel happy inside.

You gotta love that.

Christmas blues… Sort of..

Ok, first off, I’m really not depressed!

But this year I do not have even the tiniest sprinkling, minutiae of Christmas glitter about me. Not one ounce.

There are no Christmas trees in sight.
There are no flashing Christmas lights or decorations adorning my home.
There are no presents for myself OR anyone else for that matter about my person.

There is simply, nothing.
Just me and the cat.

The Christmas buzz and merriment has simply not reached me at all this year.
And I seem to have acquired a small hint of ‘Bar Humbug-ness’ about me.
But not the evil, mean kinda way – just the ‘I don’t really care about it’ way.

Do I feel mean spirited? Not at all.
But I just have not got that Christmas feeling this year.
I’ve avoided the shops like the plague. It’s just beyond unbearable. That’s not fun.
There is no desire to rush out and buy presents for people presents, because I’ll only end up pushing myself into further unnecessary debt.

And everything also seems to be so much more expensive than in the old days. Have you noticed the price of things lately? It’s shocking when you really stop and think about it.

It’s not all about money either; it’s simply there is no desire to celebrate this year.

And ultimately who are we really buying presents for?
Is it to make ourselves feel better?
Or is it to give presents that really means something to the recipient?
Or is it more about doing what we always do and that’s just follow the same old routine?
Trying to outshine other relatives and showboating… ‘hey, look how good my presents are… Look how much I’ve spent… aren’t I fabulous’.

Other than the prayer before we eat… do we even think about what it is exactly that we are celebrating?

Or is it simply a day to have off work and to give presents?

Ultimately, for me, it’s about spending time with the people that matter to me most and having a good time and reconnecting under one roof, for one day.
That to me is priceless and what it’s really about.
So that’s what I shall do this year.

Eat, be merry, share love and my time and keep it simple.

'Are you my dad?'

There’s a man in the gym I’ve started to see recently.

And there’s something about him, I’m not sure what it is, or why it is, but I have this overwhelming sensation every time I see him, that he is my father.

I’m fully aware that that is a strange and bizarre statement to make, yet it’s truly something I feel.

I have not seen my dad since my mum and he split some 20 years ago.

I have no idea what he looks like except for a faded image in my head of an old sephia photo I saw once of him, when I was about 10. That’s all I have to go on.

What’s more peculiar, is how this gentleman in turn looks at me when he see's me.
I don’t mean in a sexual way.
I mean in more of a familiar way.
There is definitely a sense of ‘something there’.

Could it really be after all these years of no contact that the world is so small that he could turn up and be a local member of my gym?

I suppose weirder things have happened.

I’m truly stumped by this and have no idea how to approach this.
Surely you can't go up to a perfect stranger and say 'Are you my dad?'.

It would be the most incredible, amazing, powerful and inspiring thing that could ever happen to me, to find and get to know my father.