27

I am still opening up the front page of Yahoo religiously the moment I wake up. But I see no Jade anymore. And that is sad. Too sad. Is it possible to mourn someone you have never met? Yes it sure it. How? Well in the same way that we all mourned Diana. Loads of us never ever spoke to her, yet the grief could be felt in the streets of London. I remember. I was there. One could argue that Diana was a true princess. She had a good upbringing, was far from daft, always played the role of the princess perfectly and died suddenly without anybody being prepared for it. She also left two boys. And I remember Earl Spencer's speech at Diana's funeral, a speech so hard on the royal family. I cried, because I was in total agreement. And I cried because I wouldn't have kept my composure so well had I been Earl Spencer and had Diana been my brother. I would have lashed out, not very dignified. Then there was Jade, so loud, so daft, so boyish, so without manners. She swore, she fought, she laughed, and thought Rio de Janerio was 'a bloke innit?' She thought that Cambridge was in London, and I remember reading about this stupid girl who just wanted to be famous regardless. It caught my attention. I never was a big brother fan, but I'd never heard of anybody so dim on camera. And as her eviction drew near, people were screaming, 'Kill the Pig'. I didn't like that. So Jade was overweight, that was not my issue. And I pursued on reading about Jade, sometimes laughing at the shrewd ways she could cook up something for fame. Then I read about her childhood, and I fell in love with this girl. So she was infamous, so what, I still loved her and her guts. I thought Jade had become a staple, that I would always be watching her from then on, till I was at least 70. I thought that then, she'd have become an old woman like me and we'd have died together. Not so. She died at 27. And 27 is a sore age for me. It is an age where I'd hit rock bottom so much that I really didn't care anymore about life. And no I've never touched drugs, I've never self harmed, I have never been a textbook girl who had a breakdown. I know I should hide my past. But Jade has taught me not to be ashamed of things I had no control over. I had no control over my breaking down. It happened in a flash. Never before had I experienced the anguish I felt at 27. I really thought my body would not be able to take the pain anymore and that I would die of a broken heart. When I remember the long days and nights spent on my divan rocking myself (because it was something I'd taken up to relieve the pain), smoking myself to death, calling 179 repeatedly and getting no help at all, sleeping fleetingly only when my body was too wretched to take more, the sobbing, the crying and the wailing which would cause me to wretch I am shocked at myself for having gone through all that and come out alive. I thought I'd never smile again let alone laugh, and since I was only 27 I thought that I'd had so many horrible years yet to come. Life was misery. It's not called a breakdown anymore. It's called a clinically depressed state. No, better still, it is now called Post Trauma Stress Disorder. It might be hard to believe but it should be called a living hell. I wanted to go at 27. Jade didn't want to but slipped away at 27. 27. Such a harsh age for me and for Jade. Perhaps we should skip 27 altogether and go from 26 to 27. It would have made my life a whole lot easier. And it would mean that Jade would still be around. By some miracle, I climbed out of that dingy big black hole and embraced life again. I thought I'd never smile, but I've laughed myself silly. It is still a shadow I try to run from. But at least I made it. Poor Jade didn't. Fuck 27.