Darling reader,
When she was alive, sometime before she robbed my friends during a sleepover and sometime after she taught her son to shoot up heroine, I heard my aunty singing in our lounge-room. It’s Got To Be Perfect, by Fairground Attraction. I followed the sound and saw her there, so beautiful, but singing louder than anybody might dare to do in somebody else’s home. She was probably textbook crazy. The irony of her singing that song felt jarring, until I later read the lyrics (below) and thought it might be the cry of her heart. Joanne was wildly talented and just wild. My mother would be far more qualified to tell you about her life; all I knew was what I saw as a child. She was part of me falling in love with music. She was the first person to scare me in real life. She was the first person I idolised.
I think about her when I put on crazy performances for my family, committing to a funny voice for the duration of an evening. I think about her when I sing and wonder why sounding good was never that natural to me. I think about her when I get weirdly competitive during board and card games. I think about her whenever I feel crazy or like the ‘crazy aunty’.
I’ve used her to help define the right kind of crazy, because it feels like we are always a decision away from taking it too far. But we are also always at risk of not taking it far enough.
We stop ourselves when we think we are breaking rules that don’t make sense.
We have a calling to sing from the rooftops but we are terrified of non-life-threatening risks so we silence ourselves forever. We don’t wanna seem different, so we never say the truth, even though everyone else is dying to hear it.
As the song says ‘Too many people take second best, but I won’t take anything less. It’s got to be perfect.’ To me perfection is being ourselves and knowing we are safe to do so. It’s the moments where we sing freely, not because we know no social etiquette, but because we know that it can make the world dance.
Love the crazy aunty, Bec.
PS. Yep, I’m the crazy aunty because I play fighting games, pull funny faces, make my nephew pretend he’s enduring child labor and yeah I have a few videos on the internet, including karate ones, that make me seem kinda different. I’m always teetering on a bad influence (but in the best way!)
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PPS.
I don't want half-hearted love affairs
I need someone who really cares
Life is too short to play silly games
I've promised myself I won't do that again