Communication...is not open and maskless

Today

Today has been like many others before it...
A windy, hot morning. Sun blaring.
Because the weather forgot to be Spring first.

Today was another morning I got up and went through the mental list of things and people that I am greatful for.

Today started "positive". Positive because people who have soaked themselves in negativity (that self-important "I got this word from a thesaurus app to make myself sound amazing" negativity)... make me nauseas and apathetic.

Today was a day that compounded car issues drove me to eventually stand roadside at sundown, screaming, yelling and crying at an inanimate object that could not have cared less.

Today was just another day that life pushed for more, expected more, got more....and still threw it up in the air.
Today was another day to do "great things". To prove ourselves to ... who exactly? It doesn't feel like I would want to prove any of what was achieved today, to myself.

Today was another day that assholes you have loved intently get to exist as if there is no consequence to their (and their partners) selfish hideous actions and wants.

Today is another day that family members struggle through some of their darkest hours, knowing that tomorrow it gets to happen all over again.

Today is a day that people you care about struggle with addictions, cravings, heartbreaks that you will never be afflicted with, that you will never really get to experience for true understanding.

Today is another day that you don't have a magic wand to wish the bad stuff away with.

Fuck the politics and right wing religious/animal and human rights activists.
Fuck our despair at materialistic waste and want and need (kinda).

As the greatest man in my life came to my rescue and laughed at me standing dishevelled on the side of the road right infront of someone's house, their dog wagging its tail at the fenceline....
And in my moment of emotional crash and burn, he kissed me on the cheek and smiled "life happens". And the noise stopped to barely a whisper.

We exist in this constant storm...sometimes it slows down a little, but it never stops.

We can't fix everything and make everything go "ok". Not for ourselves, and not for others.

We live.
Its messy, harsh, hard....and excruciatingly beautiful.
There will be scars and blood and tears...no matter what.
Peace is merely war without ammunition.

People live. People die.
Love isn't a thing to be put in a box and has nothing to do with a "right to life" or if you're straight (or not, or neither).
Sometimes if you reach out in that storm, you're saving someone from theirs.

Where to begin... and end

The last 19 months have been... a test. A test on my resilience,  my faith, my self respect, my respect for others, my gratitude, my independence...
And my soul stretched and leaned... seemingly all in the right direction.

I feel I'm better equipped to becoming the better person I set out for over 3 years ago.

And just over two weeks ago I started working. At an actual job.
I left bookkeeping (and debtors/creditors clerk positions) far behind me because of opportunities that came my way... and here I am, working less than 21km's from home, for a salary noone believed I would get in this area (and even though its alot less than what I was last earning in a permanent position) .... it's the platform I have been gifted/granted/afforded.
The work has been exhausting, mentally, and even someone as pedantic about numbers as I am... ends the day of 8 non-stop hours with "I'm done. I'm going home"...
And I feel great! Exhausted... but so absolutely great.
Though I will be "purposely serving" during the next few months as I find my way and figure everything out... I will eventually "serve a purpose" and find that great balance between work and personal space again.
I am grateful with a level of relief no words can accurately express.

To have a path again...
Though I can look back at these last 19 months with far more fondness now. As if this is what it was all waiting for.
A non-judgemental,  non corporate entity, to take me on for what I can do.

Life will happen, and sometimes its so easy to get lost in that. So easy to forget you're ALIVE. So easy to stop... so easy to give up.

Home and heart...

I don't know if everyone would consider it a "small town".
With its own police station, magistrate's court and 6 counter post office... right next to each other in one street.
One of the local animal feed co-ops sit across the road from the court, farmer's and suburban pet owners alike, pulling into the parking lot ready to stock up for the week and get supplies.

Most of the shops and banks line either side of the main road, the "city centre".
There is no mall or large shopping centres.
It's a little town, with popular chain stores, chemists, fast food franchises, hardwares and a watch store/barber that has been in the same shop for nearly 3 decades.

Doctor and dentists rooms outnumber the lawfirms and sit in former suburban homes in the surrounding neighbourhoods.

Its endearing, with it's own charm.
Admittedly not quite like the neighbouring village that it borrows its police department and municipal infrastructure too. But it has charm nonetheless.

I've lived in towns and cities, trendy suburbs
And here I have found my heart... repeatedly over the last two decades.

It's here I am home.

Of course it's difficult...

Something that came up in my Instagram timeline that has planted a light in my soul.
As this year I battle to find footing...still. sometimes you're brought these little flecks.
No one, absolutely not a single human being in existence right now, can live your life for you. Nor can they make you happy or fulfill your purpose.

This little spark I read was about "feeling" and how as humans we exist in this artificial world where we avoid anything that will make us really feel. Lack of human contact, voices, laughing, crying... are we so subconsciously in fear of pain that we'd rather not have anything?
We live our lives on social media...during the most important hours of our daily existence...
Who knows for sure...

I know things need to change... in this little life that is mine. And noone can make that happen.
Only I will beable to see whats missing and only I can open the doors to allow things in.
The journey continues...

So does the job hunt.

Journeys...

Thursday is the 2 year anniversary of being in this little house in the bushes.
The only home my furkids have known over these last 2 years alone with me.

Busy packing up boxes, but no time, date or destination waiting for me. This journey continues.

I had the best of hopes for 2014, and despite all that happened, never once did I ever dread its existence and space.
I still don't.
I still look up and wish and hope for a 2015 that will action all 2014 *felt* like.

Family and friends have been "lost" this year...
Jobs have disintegrated.
Jobs have eluded.
Masks have been removed.

And we're still here... writing, reading, learning, living.
Still waiting for that cliff edge to come into view so that we can take that jump... no hesitation.

There is no knowing what others are going through, no true understanding, no matter how hard we may try. There is this infinite space that looms between all beings. Even those of the same species. The same kind.
But I know what this year has been for me. As selfish as we think we sound, we can only know what we've gotten out of our existence.
The end of the rope reach me Sunday and I let go... maybe for good... or maybe until I find the next one. Like an emotional/mental Tarzan. Waiting for that swing through the branches.
And all I can truly hope for is that the next rope isn't another snake.

"If it hurts, then you're alive, it means something's there..." - Dead Letter Circus.

All the things...

What a way to "end" a year that STILL keeps us hoping.

A few months back I started promising a friend at the coast that I'd be visiting him. And as we went into the homestretch with the final plans and dates... we were texting and on the phone with eachother often.

I happily and positively made my way to one of my last 6 markets for the year last night.  People I know came past, chatted... and the news arrived in the form of two people I have seen often on the local market scene.
They also happen to be family of the friend at the coast.
He had "passed away" on Wednesday.

Words should be invented to accurately describe what disbelief I continue to drift in and out of.

A life just barely past 30 years of existence... a gypsy soul that was never content with being in one place for too long.
Gone.
As easily as its said.
Gone.

And yet... I cannot cry at the thought of it.
A person genuine to his very core. Someone so easy to be friends with, because it was all as simple as it was said.
Admittedly, we had had a few years of space in our relationship, but we slipped back into reparation as easily as a few honest confessions.

Gone.

But I am not without tears. Breaking the news to other people who called him friend, has been only just short of devastating.
I cry at the thought of him, of the world being without him, at having heard him over the phone only weeks ago with all these plans to be in eachothers space and.... not anymore.

Words like, Polaris, Harrier, braai and breadmaker.... will forever bring back memories that so many of us (past and present friends) will know too well. The first of many New Years Eves is approaching where we wil be without the tradition started so many years ago.... that all too familiar phone call "Happy New Year Dudey".

I'll be wishing you anyway Gar. Thank you.

Not a new year's resolution...

I want more positivity... I want to be surrounded in it.
I'm not asking to be blinded to reality by fairy tales... I'm well aware life happens, beyond our control.
But I want more positivity.

When I'm enjoying a really good cup of coffee, dew is glittering over fresh green fields... I don't want someone telling me how they hate daylight and hate grass and hate dew.

When I'm messaging someone to tell them how great they are and I'm thankful to be alive another day... I don't want to hear how they wish the day was over and how tuey "can't wait for the weekend".

Politicians (in and out the country you live) are greedy... with "power" comes that part of feeling invincible,  no matter how much you scourge from the working class.
If you have freedom of religion, work (albeit scarce), education (even if its not free) and drive, walk, talk, dance, laugh and breathe.... remember the loved one that died that doesn't have any of that anymore... or the teen living in a country that forbids you be educated based on your gender (because you apparently CHOSE to be born a girl)...

I want more positivity... more gratitude. I want to be allowed to appreciate what I am blessed with today, right now.
I'm not blind to the world and its harshness... but I want to be more positive..