The Hard Way To Know You're Still Alive

They say bad luck comes in threes. Hardly a pleasant proverb to think about when two bad things happen to you. It's complete rubbish of course. It is only when three bad things happen that it springs to your mind

A month or so ago I was chewing on a legendary liquorice torpedo and snap, Bobby's tooth and filling disintegrates. A couple of weeks later, my mother-in-law's tooth gave way. That's a long old journey just to get a darn tooth fixed. Then a week after that, my mum's tooth broke. Not a popular trend and I'll take the blame for it.

Unfortunately this theory becomes cyclical. Mum and Dad's boiler broke down, the printer ran out of ink, and mum's tooth broke. Three bits of bad luck, and the best part of a grand gone in a flash. A harsh few days, but it happens.

Breaking my tooth got me randomly thinking about the worst pain I have been through. I tend to look back on those moments fondly, strangely enough. If you can overcome severe pain, hardships, I think it stands you in good stead for what may lay ahead. That's not to say I encourage and embrace it, but it prepares you.

When I was a kid, I had a tooth abscess. That was as painful as they come. Toothache is miserable, wisdom teeth issues are not pleasant, and I've had them all. The abscess was a different ball game however. Having a needle pushed through your tooth twice a week for a couple of weeks, when you're 12 years old, was not my idea of fun in my prepubescent era.

Another fairly miserable one was these mysterious stomach seizures I had as a kid. Frequently over a period of six months, I was in agony and curled up in a ball screaming. Had various checks and tests at the doctors and turned out I was massively constipated. No kid in their right mind wanted to go to the toilet at my school and risk being pelted with soggy tissues and so on, so I just avoided it. Needless to say, the doc said I was full of shit and there was only one remedy for that!

Then a stack load of other injuries playing football, getting up to mischief, drunken mishaps. All of which lead to dislocations, sprains, cuts and breaks. Looking down at half of your finger pointing upwards is slightly surreal. Cracking it back in place then driving an hour to the hospital is even more so. But you take a deep breath, suck it up, and do what you have to do.

As everybody’s (for ‘everybody’s’ read ‘my’) favourite lyricist says: ‘Feeling pain’s a hard way to know you’re still alive.’ I could not have put it any better Barry. However, when he sung those magical words, he was referring to a psychological pain rather than the brutal nature of physical. I think both of those are true and I was reminded of it only a week last Thursday.

An early morning start at my laptop and a strong coffee was going well until my trusty old laptop decided to pack up and apparently go to laptop heaven. He suffered the physical pain I guess, but it was me that had to redo the work lost from that morning. I gave him the equivalent of laptop mouth-to-mouth and he has survived, but he is heading to the Knackers’ Yard.

Next up was our Swisscom box – our satellite box. He also decided to pack up and there was no saving this one. A tragic loss, but he lived a good and extremely full life recording football match after football match with the occasional Gossip Girl in between.

Two fairly painful pieces of bad luck in the same day, and those which border more on inconvenience and the hassle that goes with it, so I would bracket them in the psychological category. I should really have known what was coming when I played football that night when a beautiful driven shot connected with the post….the non-footballing type of post – if you catch my drift.

There is nothing worse than that sickening feeling in your stomach –not the needle through the tooth, not the stomach pains, nor the dislocation. Popping babies out doesn’t even come close I am certain as any man will testify. I have actually carried out a survey as to the extent of human pain. My Research said that pregnancy came in 3rd worst in the list of most painful ills, Man Flu came in 2nd, and a swift kick in the nuts topped the list. It must therefore be true.

They are all tests and they challenge us physically and mentally. Whether it is the broken tooth, losing the work on your laptop, or the boiler breaking down. Adversity and pain is a hard way to know we’re still alive, but it strengthens our resolve. It’s all about the bouncebackability and coping and surviving. Just consider it a reminder that whatever the pain, you are actually still alive.

When You Say Nothing At All

If you know me, then you have probably heard me talk or read something I have written about Mia. She is my six-year-old niece and is one of the most adorable people I know. Before she learned the art of speech, Mia was often seen biting, spitting, or throwing the biggest tantrum you would have witnessed. This all made sense if you knew her mum when she was a kid. Bratiness however transformed into adorability.  If you haven’t adopted one of my favourite words, this is the kind of transformation examples that you will see in the dictionary under the term bouncebackability. We wrote her off. Cute kid, but the biggest brat of all time and Super Nanny was needed. She learned how to speak and the frustration resided and being able to express herself vocally reduced the need to inflict physical and mental pain on those around.

She received her school report last week and I’ll take a quote from it.

“Mia is a popular member of the class and she has a close circle of special friends. She is also one of the most thoughtful and sensitive children I have ever had the pleasure to teach.”

How fortunate Mrs Bell never her met her four years or so ago.

My job in the betting industry taught me one thing. As passionate as I have always been about football, I have developed an ability to remove emotion out of certain equations or decisions and to try to evaluate things on their merits and not be swayed by any biases I may have. It is not easy. Maybe I am biased with Mia. Maybe every kid’s report was similar to that and Mrs Bell has five standard templates that she copies and pastes from one to the next.

Kids come out with pearls of wisdom all the time that usually crack you up. One of the joys of being a parent, uncle/auntie, grandparent etc. Mia has had her fair share and I have yet to meet a kid like her. Last week she told her mum that when Nanna passes away, she is going to move into her house so that she can be close to her. I have not managed to break it to her yet that Uncle Rob will be selling up and putting that cash on black in Vegas. I’m sure she will understand one day. I have however never come across a kid who thinks as deeply as her. I recall bursting into tears after sitting in silence for hours one evening when I was a kid and just mum and I were home. I begged her not to die and to live forever. Mum never made the promise but said she would be around for a long time. Mia is not as naïve as I clearly was, but she is already up to speed a certain realities of life that completely belie her age.

I have always been a deep thinker. I suspect that comes across in my blog and words, perhaps more so than in my personality, but that is tough for me to judge. I’ve always been attracted and have warmed to fellow deep thinkers. As I have gotten older, I find myself surrounded more and more by ‘thoughtful and sensitive’ people as my inbuilt filter system has weeded out many of those lacking those traits. I can only hope and try to reciprocate the thoughtfulness and sensitivity, and get the very most out of those relationships.

I have been thinking a lot recently about the same theme that Mia was referring to. She is on one end of the age scale, and there are folk I know and care about on the other end. None of this business gets easier, but like Mia, we try find ways to deal with something that is inevitable at some point. Who knows, maybe by the time I am old and Mia is grown up, there will be a live forever injection we can take. Although after somebody told me yesterday ‘what?! You’re only 32!?’ I’m not sure it is something I’ll be signing up for in any rush.

Mia is on to something however. No, moving in is not the answer or solution for me, and Uncle Rob’s share will go on black, rather than red due to my obvious distaste for that colour. It is the moments, the words, the gestures that imprint in our minds long afterwards. There is something hugely reassuring we can take from any key relationship in  our lives and that twenty years later, you know precisely what they would say, what they would do, what they would advise and what facial expression they would pull. I am not going to stop asking or seeking for any of the above – I’ll still talk to everybody and ask the questions, bits of advice. If I know you well, I just know what you’re going to say or what you think. It’s how I approach and deal with things in this complex world (read my head) that we live in.

Bouncebackability

One trait among athletes and in people in general that I admire the most, is the ability to hold it together psychologically when things are going tough and to fight back. The team that is losing and fights back to get a result, the boxer who has been whipped for 11 rounds and knocks his opponent out in the 12th, the guy down the street who has been diagnosed with cancer and fights through it and survives. The problem however was how to describe the process without too many words – there was no particular adjective to explain it.

A couple of years ago, a new word was introduced into the English dictionary following a campaign on Soccer AM – one of my favourite television shows – and it finally filled the void. Bouncebackability was born.

This was no more evident than on Saturday when HJ and I were on Merseyside for Everton v Man Utd. My boys played quite well apart from some comedy defensive moments, largely due to a poor performance from Sylvain Distan. 3-1 down with only injury time remaining, the Blues somehow managed to bounce back and score two goals in the 92nd and 93rd minutes to draw 3-3. The whole place erupted…or so we heard. I am not proud of this, in fact I am ashamed, but I insisted that we leave on 90 minutes. I was fighting off a cold, and was fed up at 3-1 and figured the boys had no chance with Utd in control of the game. It’s a rule I have always abided by – never leave before the final whistle. However, over the last couple of years, with a fairly fast paced lifestyle, I have developed a rule – I will leave on 90 minutes if there is a difference of two goals or more. Well it well and truly bit my butt this time, and we were victims of a severe case of Bouncebackability.

We experienced another example of Bouncebackability recently. My adorable little niece Mia had her first day at school around ten days ago. The little monkey was so excited about her first day and was having a great first day until she fell off the climbing frame and broke her collarbone. She had a rough day and a half, but then she just seemed so positive and brave about it all. Granted, she was enjoying a sweet and ice cream diet, but I was amazed at how she dealt with it all. She was on good form and she had the ability to bounce back amazingly well. I guess kids have greater recovery powers – I don’t think I would have been so lively as she was.

I would hazard a guess that anybody who has seen the show Soccer AM knows all about Bouncebackability. I would also guess that most folks here in Switzerland and anywhere else outside of the UK have never heard of it. Well, now is the time to adopt it. Throw it into a conversation when appropriate and spread the word.