After Life gets the balance right between the amazing, the awful and the absolutely ordinary
PUTTING my eight-year-old to bed recently she was complaining that her day had not gone to plan.
She said that what had started out as a perfectly brilliant day had turned "disappointing" by the end.
In fact, she believed it was bordering on "boring" - gasp!
British black comedy series After Life seems to get the balance right between the amazing, the awful and the absolutely ordinary.
Like most parents, I'm a wake-up to every bedtime stalling tactic in the book. (I've used them all myself over the years and more than likely still do!)
However, once I'd ruled this out to a degree, I got my daughter to explain why she was so sad about her "disappointing" end to the day.
She had a successful play date that Sunday morning, made scrunchies with her big sister in the afternoon and later watched a rented movie she'd been seriously hanging out for: Ralph Breaks The Internet. (It's not my scene but each to their own.)
My daughter said her terrific day had turned into a boring night.
Before I knew it, I was quoting a meme I'd seen on Facebook months ago.
Life is amazing. And then it's awful. And then it's amazing again. And in between the amazing and the awful, it's ordinary, mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary. That's just living, heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life. And it's breathtakingly beautiful. - LR Knost
It's likely too much for an eight-year-old to put into any context!
I told her: "What this means is we all get some happy bits, we all get some sad bits and we all get some boring bits."
My daughter replied: "Well, you never get bored and also my favourite YouTuber never has any boring bits in her life."
Yikes! How did I not see this coming?
I told her that mums and dads can be pretty busy and any downtime at all may be simply thought of as relaxation, rather than boredom.
"Like when Dad is flicking between rugby league matches on TV, I'm in a meditative state," I said.
"What's that?" she queried. "Chilled out," I said, "Not bored, though."
"And when I'm telling Dad about my new garden plans after bingeing Monty Don's Big Dreams Small Spaces, he's in a meditative state too."
As for the YouTuber, I assured her that all of the boring bits were edited out of her videos, never to see the light of day.
She accepted this well enough but we've set some new boundaries around YouTube viewing.
As with any social media platform, YouTube sets up some positively unrealistic, anxiety-inducing and unattainable images of life.
'What this means is we all get some happy bits, we all get some sad bits and we all get some boring bits.' My daughter replied: 'Well, you never get bored and also my favourite YouTuber never has any boring bits in her life.' Yikes! How did I not see this coming?
Just as we're grappling with topics around aspirational lifestyles and "boring bits" along comes sensational new television series After Life.
The British black comedy, which was created, executive produced, directed by and starring Ricky Gervais, premiered earlier this month on Netflix.
As a newspaper features editor, Tony Johnson (Gervais) had the dream life before his wife died from breast cancer.
He contemplates suicide, but instead he decides to live long enough to punish the world for his wife's death by saying and doing whatever he wants.
Without giving away too much, this series seems to get the balance right between the amazing, the awful and the absolutely ordinary. (Anyone who has worked on a small community newspaper will appreciate the myriad references to slow news days throughout the series. The hilarious headlines are a clue!)
The friendship formed between Johnson and Anne (Penelope Wilton) while visiting their loved ones in the cemetery is a highlight.
Their witty tete-a-tete at the foot of their respective spouse's graves is touching, tear-jerking and rib-tickling.
Despite mixed reviews, After Life shows us that life is not always laugh a minute while giving us, well, a laugh a minute.
If we can live with the "boring bits", we will appreciate the bliss all the better.
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