Dating Winter

Grace - Feeling Un-graceful

Walking past the mock up of the nativity near the Town Hall, I remembered the Christmas play where I'd been picked as Mary. A few days before I'd managed to get chicken pox and spent the week in bed, hating myself for having my starring role whipped from me so cruelly. Mum always said I was the least luckiest actress in the world. Several years later, my teacher asked me to take on the role of Miss Honey in our version of Matilda. I practically quarantined myself in the weeks leading up to it so there was no chance of me falling ill and missing out yet again. Of course, my beloved dog, Scamp, went and got run over three hours before my first performance and I was so mortified that I couldn't do anything but cry and eat ice cream. The stand in did a great job. I know this because I bought a DVD of the production afterwards. It was a kick in the teeth seeing her do my role so well. She went on to get the lead in the summer production. It was the first time I felt the kind of bitterness that would become a normal part of my life.

Unsurprisingly, I decided that acting was not for me.

The question was always the same. What was my thing?

I spent most of my teenage years trying to answer that question. Hobbies that I tried my luck at included:

- badminton (badminton - note the emphasis). 
- painting (when I covered my favourite shirt in green paint and washed it five times trying to remove it, I threw out all my paints in disgust)
- chess (made no sense at all, no matter how much I practised)
- karate (well I didn't even make it through one session as I was laddered with bruises after merely doing the warm ups)
- horse riding (don't even go there!)
- baking (cakes are always black and charred, right?)
- hockey (when the crowd jeered and gave a long and dreadful boo after a I let an attacker past me who then scored in the last minute and my team mates made me feel like dirt for the rest of the term)

The hockey one was the last straw.

You get my point. I tried.

The only thing I was surprisingly good at was growing things. After experimenting with a my own little vegetable patch at home, mum had given me half of her allotment and it now had become my happy place. Gardening was a new fascination though. I was still just a beginner. I went to a very, very dark place before discovering that life wasn't that bad after all.

When you aim to please and search for your thing and the whole world seems to be against you... Well, let's just say I can see things a lot more clearly these days.  The tablets help. A lot.

                                      ***

As soon as I got to grandad's I could tell that he was having a bad day. The confused look on his face and the fact that he had left the fridge open gave it away.

"Grandad, you're turning the entire house into a fridge-freezer."
"Don't go on. You're always on about something," he muttered, unflinching. His eyes were staring out of the window into the fields that seemed to extend as far as anyone could see. Today they appeared frosty and white, edged with occasional trees which were stripped of their leaves.

I made him a sandwich after depositing the fresh milk, yoghurt and apples into his fridge.
"Is cheese ok?" I asked, knowing full well that he only ever ate cheese sandwiches.
"Hmm. Let me think."
Boiling the kettle, I waited for him to respond.
"Yes. Cheese is what I fancy today," he confirmed, sounding as thought this was a special treat.
"Is aunt June coming tonight?"
"I think so, love. She often does."

I checked his calendar and was pleased to see I was right. June would entertain him and make sure he was ready for bed. It was a sorry state for him to be looked after by his daughter, his granddaughter and his beloved younger sister. It actually pained my heart to see how quickly he was deteriorating.

Wanting to grab some fresh air, I took his bin out, and on my way I pulled out my phone to see a waiting message from Lorna.
Damn. I forgot to text her back earlier. Dialling her number quickly, I dumped the bin and leant against the wall that separated grandad's garden from the frosted fields.

"That James was posing on insta again today," she said, oddly mentioning one of the lads from earlier.
"Was he? I actually bumped into him in town."
"Oh? Was he with anyone?"
"Just a mate. When I say bumped into, I mean I was minding my own business and his mate trod on me while he was taking a picture of James."
"Trod on ya?"
"Yeh, crushed my toe. I let him off though. He was kinda cute."

There was an awkward silence. I knew what was coming.

"Ok. Tell me about James. You get the feeling he is single then?"
I read that wrong. I assumed she was going to stir me up about his friend. She kept on coming back to James, instead. James. A boy I'd heard her mention a few times recently.
"You saying you're interested in him?" I called her bluff.
"Who? James? Nah. I was thinking he might go well with one of our girls."
"Like who?" She would have to think on her feet.

Just as the conversation was getting fun, I heard her brother asking her to help him wrap some presents.
"Right, gotta go. He can't do stuff like that and he might give me a couple if ciggies if I do it well."

Walking back to the house all I could think of was why everybody was so obsessed with smoking. I'd passed the 'try smoking' phase and it really didn't make any sense to me, yet Lorna and Sam were still puffing away all the time and nicking ciggies off anyone they could charm.

Who needed cigarettes when you got to take something much stronger for free? As soon as that thought entered my head I pinched myself sharply.

Yes, I had medication. And yes, it had helped me get out of a tough situation. But one day I was going to have to get on with my life and not rely on daily hits of prescription drugs.

Grandad spoke to me for a while about the weather and random things such as the price of his favourite tabloid. Then when he quietened down, I found myself checking instagram to see if I'd made it onto James' post. More importantly, I half hoped that Lewis may have been tagged in it.

He wasn't but he had commented underneath about how great the photographer must have been. Adding a winky face emoji, I so desperately wanted to think of a clever way to reply to his comment. But instead I simply followed him. It wasn't that unusual for me to follow people from Sixth Form but his profile was protected so the message came up: 'This person will have to accept your request.'

I was worried that he would have seen my follow request and freaked out. Luckily my worries were soon eradicated as by the time I got home he had not only accepted but had also followed me back.

To add to this he liked a few of my recent pics, bringing an enormous smile to my face.

"You can wipe that smile off your face young lady!" came an all too familiar voice as I opened the door and saw mum standing there, waiting with a red face and tightly crossed arms.