What Mel Did
What Mel Did - Sydney, Australia, ferry with MCF, BHFIII

Why Am I Telling You This Story, Again?

Lately, me, colleagues and friends, all peers, begin a riotous, sad, pathetic, funny or otherwise tale. We will then typically stop our narration to ask: “Why am I telling you this story, again?”

And sometimes, not only have we forgotten why we started a story, but we’ve also forgotten we probably told that same story last week, yesterday – or an hour ago.

What the hell?

We tend to joke about getting older when we secretly don’t think we’re getting older. There is an inevitable day, though, when we say with heart: “Damn! I’m feeling old.” Like when someone doesn’t know the album ‘Thriller’ – or remember when Michael Jackson was black.

Never coy about my age, I did however over the years get used to people jumping back in amazement when I told them I was 30, 40, 50. Being said, I recently joked I was 70. Hah! Hah! Except the gathered audience didn’t laugh along or offer a word of dissent. Upsetting much? Especially since I’d remembered to pluck my white chin hairs that morning.

And the laughs just kept on coming.

I was at the doctor that same week for a suspected hernia – which probably occurred when I was lifting my self-esteem off the floor after colleagues accepted I was nearly 20 years older than I was. Good news, though, it wasn’t a hernia – it was a touch of arthritis in a slightly displaced hip bone.

The young doctor was great and his jolly “Nothing to worry about, it happens to all of us” comment would normally have triggered a sarcasm, except I had nothing in my arsenal for the situation.

I can’t remember the last time a quick quip eluded me…

But no matter how old I get, the day Bronnie died is etched forever on my memory.

I didn’t forget to post in his honour on 15 January this year, I chose not to post. There is a sweet narrative in the desk draw, his desk draw, remembering our times together and the things we had planned when the last child claiming we were their parents had left home. Being in Australia for Christmas with two of these alleged offspring brought some of those coupledom plans back to the front of my memory again – and at times the remembered loss left me breathless.

Writing and remembering plans planned, now unplanned, and the jaunts we were going to have together into our dotage, sucked and has sucked for the whole of January 2019.

So, why am I here telling you this story, again, for another year?

Because there are people who have only known me as a singleton and it’s just really nice being remembered by some of you as very much part of a couple.

RIP, Bronnie. 24

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