So there is one big thing I have really been meaning to write about!
Just over a year ago I was diagnosed with tuberculosis.
This was pretty weird. For a plethora or reasons: I'm a young, female, white, middle class westerner who is generally rather homely and boring. [Although those factors didn't help Beth much in Little Women!]. So I'm not a statistically obvious candidate for this vintage ailment.
But its mostly weird because I am named after a young girl who grew up in my little home town at the turn of the last century who died from TB. DIED I tells ya! Things have certainly come a long way since then thankfully and I'm not going to die or anything. But that is a creepy coincidence right?
Now, sufferin' the consumption was nasty. The drugs were really yucky, intense and boring. But it forced me to stop, and slowed me down, and gave me a chance to enjoy things properly, and wonder why I'm here and who I am and whether it even means anything? Being cooped up at home under quarantine, I had time, real time!
So what must one do in the face of such peril? Besides learn origami, drink tea, read Frankie and take endless instagram photos of the cat...?
Well I bought a ukulele of course! I started strumming away, writing cute little happy tunes, singing out from under the doona in my pyjamas! One thing led to another. When I felt a bit better, I sung at my first open mic night and people really liked my songs! I'd always been so freaking SHY, that this was a lovely surprise and a bit of a hallelujah moment (without the angels)!
Then I busked. I formed a little ukulele band (the urban ukes). We got a residency in a little cafe. I got my first paid gig. First festival. I took a break from work. I auditioned for music school. And then I got in! I even won a little study grant from the lovely NMIT to help me along my way!
And on top of all that, or maybe because of all that, I fell in love with a beautiful man!
So there you go. Some truly great things can truly come from the bad. You never know where this crazy life is going to take you. Sometimes you just need a kick up the bum to make you do the things you love!
