LIVING ON MEMORIES

Often staff come in to my room and tell me what they’ve been up to. Attending a concert, dinner with friends, even about their new training regime at the gym. Strangely, at the moment, this is one of my main connections with the outside world, you see I’m not going out much and living my own experiences so I’m living vicariously through theirs. I welcome the day I can create my own again though.

Anyhow, sometimes I quite like this yet other times it makes me really sad. It reminds me of how constricted my life has become, it even makes me miss the old able-bodied me. Damn my life is complex. Actually, just thinking about it, I don’t think I’ve been to a supermarket in over two years. I’’s a lot of the simple everyday stuff that I miss out on.

Still, when a carer tells me all about what they’ve been up to (sometimes they even show me photos on their phone), and often these stories jog my own memory about things I’ve done in the past. For instance, today my carer came in and told me about how she’d been go-karting the night before. So awesome, I freaking love go-karting! Oh and I was absolutely obsessed with Mario Kart as well!!

But this morning, just hearing the words go-karting, it took me straight back to when I was seventeen years old. I was on a family holiday in the seaside town of Coffs Harbour in New South Wales, gees life was good for me around that age, but to stick on topic, no matter where we’d go on holiday’s my brother and I would always sniff out local go-kart tracks. In particular, the outdoor tracks. It was kinda our thing. Man I’ve raced on some fantastic tracks, one time in Maroochydore Queensland we even found this full mud pit track, and the karts no shit had full roll cages, so much fun. And OMG we ended up so dirty.

In Coffs Harbour though, jackpot, we found this full competition go-kart raceway. It was a few kilometres long and designed specifically for high performance karts. It was like a full on race track (just a miniature version) with a pit lane, grandstand, sponsor signs and proper bitumen. Plus, from memory the karts went 60kph+, and blimey when you’re that close to the ground it feels like you’re driving formula one.

Vroom… bang… vroom… oh man this was epic entertainment. My brother and I in these full race suits and helmets, also quite conveniently it was a beautiful day, but hey two bogan boys absolutely hammering these karts we were in heaven. These things didn’t even sound like lawn mowers, they had real ballsy grunt. Tim the toolman Taylor would’ve been proud. And, bang, bang, all I remember doing was going as fast as I could into corners and braking as late as possible, dayum yo full sideways action, and flippin’ chips the tyres would full on smoke up as well. Loved it. Um, the officials not so much.

Far out what a great memory. Makes me love my brother too – gees I miss bonding with him in these good ol’ boyish ways. Still, it’s great to reminisce. This memory has really made me smile today.

Heck, it makes me want to bust out the old photo albums tonight.