Mad Mabel

A silent tear slips down my cheek. It strikes me that, with all the cruelties in this world, there is still nothing quite as dangerous as kindness.

Friends are like oxygen. If you’ve been blessed enough to have always been surrounded by friends, you might think I’m overplaying this. I don’t blame you. If you’d always been surrounded by air, you wouldn’t think to credit it for your very existence either. But I’ve spent much of my life gasping for breath, so I promise you, it’s true. Friends are like oxygen.

Because, as a few choice victims know, the only thing worse than bullying itself is the shame of speaking it aloud.

People have so little regard for female friendship that they can’t fathom a closeness such as we have without the romantic element. More fool them.

Dicked by the dangling dong of destiny

She did other things too—opened all the windows to let in the breeze, spread bright cloths across the table like she was laying out sunshine, turned on the wireless to let a little music move through the rooms. Looking back, I sometimes think this should be a service one could gift the grieving: the quiet, steadfast presence of someone who still believes there’s joy to be found—someone willing to hunt for it on your behalf.

All I can say is that once you've felt it, you'll realize that the only thing worse than the stabbing pain is the absence of it.

but because people have so little regard for female friendship that they can’t fathom a closeness such as we have without the romantic element.

one of the many glorious things about old age is that while aspirations of beauty may linger, they sit well below aspirations of health, comfort, and absence of pain.

Punctuality, it seems, has joined common sense and properly made furniture on the growing list of things that no longer exist.

Unfortunately, with great expectation came the opportunity for great disappointment.

As far as I'm concerned calling your child Sailor was a declaration that you had far too much time on your hands and anyone who attempted to name their child that should be issued the name Eustace or Darold by the government as punishment.

And yet, as I open my mouth to talk, and images of that day flash before my eyes—I feel the air shift, as though the past has slipped into the room beside me.

most kids took for granted—a life with a loving family, a friend or two, a supportive community. A life of people who noticed you were there … or, dare I say it, wanted you there?

one could gift the grieving: the quiet, steadfast presence of someone who still believes there’s joy to be found—someone willing to hunt for it on your behalf.

The child can call me Horace as long as she goes the fuck to sleep.

This,’ he would say, ‘is my mum’s spanakopita. Best spanakopita in the world.

I get it,’ Christos said after a while. ‘I’m no genius, and I like the smart girls too. I think it’s an evolutionary thing, for our survival. If we’re not smart, we have to bag a smart girl.

only thing worse than bullying itself is the shame of speaking it aloud.

I wipe them away before anyone can see. So this is the pain of loving, I think to myself. This is the pain of being loved.

There’d been a time when I would have yearned for even one-hundredth of this beauty, but one of the many glorious things about old age is that while aspirations of beauty may linger, they sit well below aspirations of health, comfort, and absence of pain.

She is, it turns out, one of those offensively good-natured people. It makes me wonder if she is, in fact, a nurse. It’s always bothered me, nurses and their insufferable cheer. Never mind that they spend their days doing the most difficult and important job on earth for a wage barely above the poverty line, they do it with a bloody smile on their faces. It’s hard to take, truly it is.

Wills and Carlaw look at me. “Did you call your lawyer?” I can only imagine my facial expression. “I would have,” I say, my voice all posh-like. “But I used my one phone call to ring Beyoncé instead.

There will be those who disagree with me, of course. People who say romantic love trumps platonic female friendship. Or parental love. Or love of self. Those people are just giving away the fact that they’ve never experienced true platonic female friendship. The kind of friendship you’d do anything to preserve—fight, steal. Even kill. Here’s a little-spoken fact for you: Friends are like oxygen. If you’ve been blessed enough to have always been surrounded by friends, you might think I’m overplaying this. I don’t blame you. If you’d always been surrounded by air, you wouldn’t think to credit it for your very existence either. But I’ve spent much of my life gasping for breath, so I promise you, it’s true. Friends are like oxygen. And the only reason I’m still alive is Daphne.

Libby produces a gold-edged box of loose-leaf green tea and a straining device. I am, naturally, appalled. After the ingenious invention of the tea bag! Only this generation. Next they’ll start boiling water on the stove for their bath instead of turning on a hot tap. But each to their own, I suppose.

And there is no greater love story than that of platonic female love.

Never had I seen my own loneliness articulated and reflected back like that.