Mourning

Grief.

Sorrow.

The removal of pleasure.

Life is plagued with the onset of pain and troubles.

Sometimes they can come in the form of the ordinary. The little things like passive-aggressive nurses making one's day more difficult by demanding their will be done.

Sometimes it can come in the form of the personal tragedy. The bigger things like the father diagnosed with terminal degenerative illness and the changes that accompany a family coming to grips with such a diagnosis.

Sometimes it can come in the form of national surrender. The antithesis of the jingoism that characterises a colonial nation.

We lost the soccer. And it sucks.

To be honest I didn't highly rate our chances when we qualified late last year. I thought to get into the World Cup would be achievement enough for our fledgling patchwork team. But somehow they proved us wrong. Somehow they rallied together and pulled off some damn good soccer. And somehow they captured our hearts.

But last night we were heartbroken. A poor theatrical attempt by the despo Italians saw us packing our bags and switching off our TV sets. To be honest we played crap. We passed the ball too much and didn't have enough suprise in our attack. We gave them more than enough time to regather and form a wall in their box. But we didn't deserve to lose either. We held them at bay for 90 minutes only to have a crushing blow delivered on the siren.

Life just doesn't taste the same today. The gloss is a little less shiny and the mornings a little colder. The hopes have been curtailed and the wind taken out of our national sails.

Kinda like girls actually... you cautiously don't get too exicted because you don't like your chances anyway but then small little signs start to suprise you and your hope builds. You get sucked in to the 'match' and become a 'fan'. Only to have your dreams shattered by a decision that goes against you. And yet in another 4 years you'll get up, turn the TV on again and watch all over again. Hopefully the interval between nice girls wont be as sparse.

A good friend put it quite accuarately last week. "It'd be nice to have someone to wake up next to." Someone to be there when work is crap and you need to be remined of the good in life. Someone to lean on when your life starts falling apart. Someone to support during their times of difficulty. Just someone.

Another friend (who has been thru some suffering of their own) said to me that at times like these you really don't want people's sympathy. You get sick sometimes of repeated asking about how blah is going. You just want to be around your friends and enjoy the good things in life once more without being reminded of the bad.

Sometimes you need to be reminded to breathe.