Mornings With Matt – Nicole Gurd

What would’ve happened if I’d stayed? The town was sucking me dry. If I think about it, my trajectory, it was all down hill.  I was drinking more after that night. I drank to forget I was unhappy. I drank to forget it hurt. I drank to forget who I was.   I was sure to have tried harder drugs, that was just how they rolled, my peer group. Harder and faster, every weekend was something new,  something explored. Every weekend boundaries were breached and new ones set, only to be tested and pushed again. We were bored. The whole fucking town was! We were desperate. We were delinquent. We were dying.

Perhaps I would’ve stayed with my sad boyfriend.  Perhaps I would’ve been one of the ones to encourage him to hold up the bottle shop with a syringe.  Or perhaps I would’ve been the one to talk him out of it. Perhaps I would’ve been a junkie, no job, no ambition, no hope –  just like the others. Perhaps I  would’ve been the one to OD. Maybe the first, certainly not the last.   Or perhaps I would’ve missed my girlfriends and moved to Melbourne anyway. They’d moved for uni – maybe I’d have gone to Uni.  Perhaps I’d have a degree. Probably means I wouldn’t be here right now. In this room, with these people, with Dev. Probably means a lot of things. Who fucking knows. Who fucking cares.

If I  had 6 months to live, I wouldn’t change a thing.   I’ve not often had idealistic futuristic thoughts or pondered my lifestyle’s sustainability.  It’s always been one foot in front of the other. Which door, which path, which adventure next? I’ve been forced to face my mortality head on several times already so I’m convicted in my choice of no change.

I’m pretty fucking happy with my lot,  which is not through luck, it’s through good decision making.  Right now, if my husband could not leave so early and have a cuppa with me in the morning I’d say things are pretty fucking close to great!