Bridget McNulty

Celebration and sadness:

// May 28th, 2010 // Life (and the living of it), Love

So here it is: the reason I’ve been such a slack blogger of late.

Two reasons actually, one lovely and one sad.

First the lovely (because all the pictures relate to it).
Last weekend my man and I had our engagement party. It was wonderful! Such a celebration. We had a garden party at our dear friends’ house, and served all kinds of cake, and mojitos. The sun shone, loads of our friends came (some from Durban!) and my whole family was there (half of them imported from Durban for the weekend). Three dear friends stayed with us over the long weekend, and we ate pizza and picknicked in the forest and laughed. A lot.
The night after the engagement party, the three girls came home, changed into our pyjamas, rented a stupid-funny movie and ate take-out. Fun fun fun.

It was a really wonder-full weekend.

The sadness comes in because at the beginning of the week we found out that the girlfriend of one of my man’s best friends committed suicide. Only now they can’t find a cause of death, so it’s possible it might have been a really severe asthma attack. So so sad. She was only 22, but she was bipolar and had had a really hard year. Still, to have life snatched away (or given away) at such a young age just makes my heart ache. As much for the people who are left behind as for the poor girl herself (I didn’t know her that well, I know him really well). And there’s just nothing you can say, you know? No way to make it better. It’s really just a matter of letting time heal.

So it was an unusual week: so full of happiness and so full of sadness. It’s taken me some time to process all of it.
What I’m left with, though, is this feeling of gratitude for so many things in my life. When I first found out that she had killed herself, I thought, “What about ice cream?” What about sunsets and cups of tea on the verandah and long walks in nature and really funny TV and going to the movies and fresh avo on toast and bear hugs and waking up next to the one you love and long silences and laughing till you cry and the quiet of early morning?

But of course, if you’re severely depressed you’re not thinking of these things. I get that.
But it has made me reassess how much I love in my life. What do you love?