Can't buy me love. health. sanity. And all that other important stuff.

There's this guy in my city that spends all day every day riding on a bike around town with a ridiculous black motorcycle helmet on & a dirty army jacket. I call him dirty Harry. He sings quietly to himself, riding around in his own private universe, & always says hello when he sees me. He is dirty, but he has sparkle.

There's this other guy, he's about 80, tall & skinny with no fixed abode. He walks around town holding his life possessions in a supermarket bag while he hunts through council rubbish bins for something special. Food probably. I call him Skinny Jim. I see him everyday. Skinny Jim always says hello to me. He has sparkle too.

This other dude, called David, he has a greying ginger afro & I have never seen him wear anything else except a royal blue tracksuit. Every day. The blue tracksuit. And his little black man purse. David is shy. He has a mental illness. He whispers when he talks to me. But when he does talk to me, his eyes smile & sparkle.

I wonder sometimes how they got to this. The journey they travelled to get to this. Something deep inside me, buried in the left ventricular artery gets a little achey as I remember that I am blessed with so much, while they sparkle on with so little.

They are shining examples of what we normal comfortable folk should be. Happy & content with what we have.

Sickness is rife in my life at the moment. I don't know what's going on but people are starting to drop like flies.

My best friends mum is dying. Every day cancer is stealing a little bit more of her sparkle.

My sister in laws mum has cancer too. She pretends to have sparkle so those people that love her most don't worry too much.

Blake's Uncle has just been diagnosed with stomach cancer. He is only in his 40's, has two young kids & is such a cool guy. We love him to bits. And I just don't get it? Why him? He's got so much sparkle it's blinding.

My step mum is dying too. My Dad loves her so hardout. Her sparkle is being taken from her by a horrible disease that I just can not except.

My dad also has cancer. He had surgery while I was in Mexico & they cut away a big part of his man sparkle. The doctors are stuck & don't know what to do next. So my Dad, the man who helped create the essence of me, sits & waits for someone to help him carry on living.

My Dad & his wife are doing it together. She is not winning. So fucking sad.

We all get so caught up in our own shit. We get lost & disorientated in our shit. And we forget how blessed we are to be given the ultimate gift of being able to wake up every day & take a big breath. To suck in life's purest element, the one true thing that keeps us ticking on.

Instead we choose to let the small insignificant things break us down & drown us. Stop us breathing. We complain about the sore back, busted car, lack of sleep, not having enough money to buy stupid shit we don't really need, toxic relationships we walk into eyes wide open time & time again. We complain because it's our human condition. We want people to stroke us & say that every thing will be ok.

The truth is, & I hate to be the one to say it, we are fucking lucky to wake up & only have to deal with that stuff. So lucky. Cos on the grand scheme it's nothing man. Nothing in comparison to what others are fighting right this very minute.

Yesterday I found myself having a bitch slap fight with a coke vending machine. It hurled my Coke Zero down the chute of death so dam hard that upon landing at the bottom it furiously rolled from side to side in a coke coma. And then when I opened it & it exploded in my face.

I was so angry. Like raging piss mad angry.

10 minutes later I sat at my desk & it dawned on me, a glorious revelation, you know what, if this is the worst thing that happens to me today then I am having the best fucking day ever. And then I sparkled at the coke machine & said 'hey man, no hard feelings'. Because I'm a bit crazy like that.

Then I went home & kissed my husband. Like really kissed him. And I told him I loved him so much & that this life time will never be long enough with him.

No funny post from me today. I just want to remind everyone how lucky we all are, cos it's easy to forget. I forget. I also know too many;people who forget how lucky they are every single day. And I listen to them moan & complain about everything. I want to punch them in the mouth. Hard.

I think the point I'm trying to make is that even though sometimes life can suck a big festy ball sac, most of us still have a choice of whether or not to let it break us. There will always be someone out there who's fighting a bigger harder uglier fight than our own. Trying to keep that idea in the fore front of our minds may help make us stronger? A little bit more kickass perhaps?

Go hug a stranger today. A ginga maybe seeing as it's hug a ginga day in NZ & all. Although I do recommend you ask for permission to hug first to prevent a rape whistle being blasted in your ear.

Tell someone in your life that you love them & really mean it.

Smell a babys head, cos it really is the best smell in the world next to KFC. Unless of course it has a fungal infection.

Reassure someone who clearly needs to hear it that their life is good, buy them a coffee or just listen.

Cos life IS good.

I'm thinking about starting a weekly kindness mission.

Go softly my friends.

Peace & love