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Day 29: Be Brave Challenge – Dumarse Shit Stories!

Truth be told some of us take a little longer to learn certain ‘life lessons’.😉

Random story: I made my favourite Vietnamese spring rolls for dinner last night🌯🌯. In an attempt to pack some for lunch today I put them in my long container, which has a little side container. (Perfect for my soy sauce, one would think?🤔)
But I’ve used this container before….and I know the lid doesn’t close properly so probably best to put soy sauce in separate container. (That’s my logical voice of reason talking😮) 
Of course, as usual, I ignore her and convince myself that I will just carry the container carefully on the way to work tomorrow. (No need to make more dishes than necessary, as already mentioned I hate dishes😬) 
So of course, as always happens when you are rushing in the morning, you simply grab everything with little thought to your well- thought out strategy from the night before.

As I run in to pay for my petrol, sweet cashier lady points out that the entire half of my gorgeous white jersey is poo brown. 💩Soy sauce! I thank her for being kind enough to point it out to me and then laugh as I regale the time I wore two different boots to school and no one commented. (Was suitably mortified when I got home and discover it🙄). Cashier assistant said maybe they thought I was making a fashion statement. I pointed out that I am by no means that ‘cool’. We have a good laugh and I move on. 
Driving to school, I am slightly amused as I am silently thinking to myself: ” Gayle honestly you really have done some ‘dumarse shit’ in your life.” No seriously, I know we all do stupid stuff at times but some of mine has been on a whole new level. And the problem, as I moaned to a friend a few years ago…is that instead of just shutting up about it…I then go and blurt it to the world.🔊📣🔔🎙 I used to berate myself for this quite a bit. Why couldn’t I just keep it to myself? Why wasn’t I better at portraying the cool, calm and collected girl? I had a friend in London once who was the epitome of that…she was gorgeous, her hair always looked like she had stepped out of a salon, figure to die for, always on time, never saw her spill anything, (make- up bag always clean and orderly🙄) awesome dancer and to top it off she had this mysterious demureness that drove men crazy whenever we went out. She really seemed to be so perfect in so many ways and if I hadn’t loved her so much….I would have hated her. We kind of lost touch over the years but subconsciously I always held her as the barometer to which I measured myself against.

 “When I grow up one day, that’s what I’m going to be like! Sorted, the picture of perfection!!”

These days I couldn’t imagine anything worse. (No offence to my friend of course😇) It’s just not me. I kind of like that I do ‘dumarse shit’ and can laugh at it. I love making my friends laugh and even better yet I love that so many of my friends have their own ‘ dumarse shit’ stories to tell me. 😂

So on that note, I’m going to share what I consider to be one of the dumbest things I think I have ever done. (Are you ready for it?) In 2001 I spent my summer holiday in Japan with one of my oldest friends. One of the things I loved about that country was all the temples and Buddha shrines. (I still love Buddha’s to this day….they calm me). So random thought the next year while trying to decide where to go for my next holiday was: ” mmmm where can I go to see more Buddha’s?” And the answer came to me in a flash of light: 🌩⚡⚡
“Buda-pest!” 😌😫😳 And yes that’s exactly
where I went…..because I have never in my life done any research on any of the countries I have travelled to. I simply buy a ticket, hop on a plane and go.

I arrived in London dressed for freezing winter…in the middle of their summer!

I was desperate to get away from London rain so flew to Thailand during their monsoon season- never seen so much rain in my life 💧💧💧

….the stories can go on and on….) So yes, of course, had I done my research I would have discovered that not only is
Budapest home to one of the most populous Christian communities in Central Europe but that there are also no Buddha statues or shrines to be found anywhere. 🙄

I once told this story to an American girl I met travelling. She stared at me, in such horror, in such disbelief and then leant over touched my hand reassuringly and said: “Gayle you must never, EVER tell anyone that story again.” (And she, in all kindness, meant it) 
My internal thoughts where ” What? bugger that…. You do realise you are killing my best material here!? ” 🤐
The fact of the matter is: I was a naive, somewhat clueless 26-year–old girl, (with admittedly zero knowledge of world cultures) who was nevertheless brave enough to go and explore the world she didn’t know (by herself.) AND in the process, she learnt to laugh at herself and found she kinda enjoyed retelling her dumarse stories, especially if they entertained her friends. 🤗 In her humblest of opinions, life is definitely more fun when you can learn to laugh at yourself.

So with all respect to my friend…I will probably be telling that dumarse stories to my grandchildren one day while swinging on my pole. 😎

Have a beautiful day tomorrow.