Mingo.Life

Friday, 12th July 2024

Today I had a conversation with an old man. A simple, boring, mundane every day conversation. Something about it sparked off the chemicals and neurons in my brain that then opened a door of creativity. You see we usually only hear about all the bad stuff, but life is beautiful if you give it a chance. Inspired by my friend Joe, who is currently travelling the world [and writing his own blog daily], I finally decided to start sharing my life experiences with the world too.

I worried it’d be too trivial, writing a blog, or nobody would read it. Perhaps I’d be wasting my time, and that may yet be so who knows. But my friends, almost all of them, when I regale them with tales of my adventures, keep commenting on the things I’ve seen, done and been through and urge me to write a book. One day I will, but whilst life firmly has it’s foot on the gas pedal for me I thought I’d share some little stories here and there. It is my hope that my family, those close to me and some new friends along the way enjoy some inspiring tales and follow along. More on this at the end.

Back to that old man then. Well, today was probably one of the more significant days of my life. I had surgery. Under general anaesthetic, I had four wisdom teeth removed and one of them was stuck right in there. The pain afterwards is pretty incredible, as you’d expect and the taste of blood isn’t as enjoyable as you’d think. Before surgery an old man was sat opposite me. Shamefully I was wallowing introvertly in my own anxiety, over-thinking and “what if”-ing whilst I mindlessly thumbed the pages of a novel. Our man, let’s call him Colin because I never actually caught his name, had just returned from his own surgery. He sparked up a conversation after observing me a while. He’d just had an operation on his hand to fix a lingering issue with the nerves in his fingers, and was displaying remarkably high spirits. We joked about the toast he was eating, that I wouldn’t be able to do shortly. He told me how he and his wife had been out food shopping for things he could eat one handed, I laughed and explained I’d done the same with my wife for things that were soft or liquid. We talked about the supposed three no shows to surgery today we’d overheard the nurses complaining about, and shared a British spirit of doing what we can to help the NHS, even as a patient. He told me his stories of travelling France for seven weeks, and the architecture and the flower gardens he’d finally been able to enjoy in his retirement. I confessed my desire to do the same, lamenting being a slave to the economy and working just to keep the lights on.

Time passed a little quicker with some company, and before I knew it my South African nurse, Paul, came to collect me for surgery. Colin smiled and wished me luck. I knew in that moment I would never see that man again in my life, but as I passed him I said those two meaningful words, “Thank You”. He smiled and nodded back. He could see I was anxious as hell, I could see he was lonely, and for an hour we became companions of shared trauma. It made me reflect on the constant torrent of social media, news articles and bad things happening all the time, all over the world. It made me realise that, counterpoint to those bad things – for every evil human being, there’s always a Colin to balance it out.

I lay on the operating bed and felt the intense ache as the anaesthetic worked it’s way up my arm, managing just enough muscle movement in my other arm to raise a lazy thumbs up to the team of three medical professionals working around me. Paul asked me to think of a beach, and a cocktail, and some sunshine. I drifted off dreaming of a beach in Southern Fuerteventura, which I hope to visit in August with Emma. Time passed. Then, a faceless woman’s voice echoing and bouncing off the walls of my empty head, “Stephen! Stephen! Wake up Stephen!” she commanded with authority. And then, just like that, it was done. I woke up with my right arm raised still convinced I was holding a glass of wine and oddly yelled something instructive and demanding directed at my non-present work colleagues through swollen, bleeding and dribbling lips. Eventually, a very kind close friend gave me a lift home and now here I lay writing this.

I’ll see how I go, keeping this thing going. I have wanted to write for a very long time. I’m a father of two girls, one being a disabled child. I’m a husband to a wife who has battled some incredible demons and achieved things I’d never think possible myself. I’m a frontline working professional in an intense field of work that cannot be named for security reasons (any stories about that will have names, places, dates and such all changed or redacted for obvious reasons). Naturally, I’m busy guy!

I used to wrestle, I’ve tended birds of prey and I am learning Spanish and German with a 1120 day Duolingo streak. I’ve been on cliff edges with people at their lowest, I’ve been assaulted more times than I can count (lawfully and unlawfully!), I’ve defended the weak, supported the vulnerable and I once met Noel Edmunds. I’ve experienced things I will probably never write about here, and many I can’t wait to get off my chest, I’ve come to terms with who I am as a person and yet I am continually learning, growing and developing. I’ve nearly died a few times and I’ve very much truly lived… And I’m only 33.

Strap in for the ride, it’s a wild one. And support us! Emma (my wife) has also expressed an interest in journaling some of her ordeals, which may be quite the tough read but no less fascinating for those in the same boat. If you’re interested in reading our stories every week/few days or whenever I can publish them, please submit your email address and subscribe. You’ll get the blogs emailed to you directly when they’re out. We hope to slowly grow this little project as time passes. Your support would mean a lot to us, and it will also give you something to read on the toilet/plane/taxi/bus/work meeting you should be paying attention to/instead of listening to your family tell you something really important.

Thank you, and goodnight.