By Real people
Real people marry more than once, have mortgages, sit at kitchen tables covered with bills to pay.
May have many friends or few.
Real people have children who no longer speak to them. They grow up in broken families, the best of families or no family at all.
Are promiscuous (or secretly dream of being so). They cannot remember the last time they truly made love, dressed for a romantic night out, indulged on the eyeliner instead of the concealer.
Real people forget to pick up children at school, have holes in their socks, have performance anxieties, binge drink or eat, swear. They recycle Christmas presents, dread meetings with teachers, worry about their kids’ future, have unspeakable regrets.
Real people see their flaws, make uneasy peace with mirrors.
They wear containing underwear, fake hair and lashes, height enhancing shoes.
They have addictions – alcohol, chocolate, carbs, gambling, tobacco, lottery tickets, game shows – they take refuge from heavy life.
Real people love trashy pop songs and B-movies which they keep to themselves.
Occasionally, when broken, they enter a church. And weep.
At least 10 times in their life, real people dream of not heading home after work.
They have moments of utter madness. They cling to political incorrectness and clothes that are years out of fashion.
Real people have traumas they keep at bay and simply want to be loved.
They tell white lies to protect themselves. They work in banks, offices, schools, on the road, in fields, stock exchanges, sail the seas, go on the moon, rot in jails, grow rhubarb, turn to politics.
All of it is real.
Where do I fit in?
Everything you see belongs equally to you.
Everyone is like you – just 1 out of 7 billion.
So sing in the car.
Eat oily chips from forgotten newspapers.
Dance in your socks and underwear and know that you’re freaking gorgeous.
Tell your 60 year old receptionist that you couldn’t get through your work days without her smile.
Pull faces at babies in supermarket queues and buy yourself chocolate if they give you a smile.
Give the last notes in your wallet to a stranger, even if you have to walk home in the pouring rain – you may you find yourself happier in that moment than you can remember being in forever.
But you’re alive, so enough of the grieving.
Enough of the bloody shame.
Listen, my friend, listen…just go and live your goddamn life.
