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..

Strings and things...

There is nothing quite so nerve wracking as being someone who NEEDS to be "in control" of everything possible...and then finding out how little "possible" actually is.

Financially,  emotionally, spiritually and mentally,  you have to start throwing your worries to the wind...because right now, its like they're all rhetorical questions in my life.
Because I know what the answers would be if I had a full time job again... and yea, if I had a full time job.

How awful is it that so much can depend on us working for someone else? Either it's a joke or it's pretty sad....

We're so very lost when one piece of our puzzle falls away... I'd like to say I can deal with it, and that I'll "find a way"... but for all my trying there seems to be this massive invisible wall that keeps jumping I to my path along this journey.
Luckily I'm stubborn... or unlucky

But for all of this instability, I can be sure of how grateful I am for each day I get to wake up to. The more I look at the little things, the more I can find a way of easing the unease.
Bitter sweet and comfortably so... I guess.

I guess its better than losing my mind, pathetically, to the "real world".

Losing your sense of humour...and finding yourself...

Every morning I wake up, open up doors in the house, travers my way between a cat and three dogs to the kettle... and for those few minutes that it takes the kettle to boil (plus a bit) I sit on the kitchen floor, in the doorway, listening and watching as my neighbourhood wakes up.

Someone near has a peacock...and sheep. And every morning during this ritual, while the dogs are madly chasing eachother in post sleep energy drain and my cat "observes" them... this peacock calls to the world. So distinctly.
And sheep call to eachother in illogical panic and birds all around in the trees and sky demand that everyone knows they're there.
I find a very blissful calm in this cacophony.
And I find myself not OWED that moment, but blessed to be allowed that moment.

Thankfully its a hot Spring, so I get to enjoy this moment before 6am in sunlight...
I also sit in these moments,  where noone else has shared it with me... and my mind wanders, even if only a few seconds to the surreal feeling of missing a part of myself.
To think that nearly two years ago (give or take a month) my best friend in the entire world dissappeared from my life. Willingly.
That the world has not stopped turning and we have not fallen apart... I thought this angered me once upon a time, but now I see a space that will never be filled and a seeking for the piece that eventually subsided.
You move on...you live.... and its a choice to let it drag you down or lift you up.
My best friend may be lost forever... and my grip on the string of hope...is no more.
Many people, blood or water, will only be a moment in your life and you in theirs... we drift like water living vicariously through the material world of hugs and kisses and spoken word.... but this is all fleeting.
My heart will only ever be in the place it always was....

And then the click of the kettle and I watch the rooibos tea steam in the cup in my hands. I grab whatever Terry Pratchett novel I'm busy on and read a good few pages with my playlist blaring therapeutically through my little house.
The dogs have worn themselves out and are stretched across a dew covered lawn, the cat is solar powering in the doorway... and the day begins.

At the expense of sounding new age...douchy....hippy... every morning is just another chance to live, without shackles and ties and negativity...
Very little compares to these small things... and nothing will ever replace what is lost... but there is no way I'd stepback to sacrifice what has already happened in the hope it would be different.

Burn the hearth...

After months in a swirl of freelance work, job hunting, crafting and living... alot of things have been learnt and realised.
Alot of good things, more than the disappointments.

Have found an unending list of things daily, that I can be completely grateful for. Things that noone can affect either. Things that I can experience and smile at in complete solitude, yet share with others.

These things have made my heart a little better, and I'm closer to the path I want to walk... we slip and fall  and lose sight of who we want to become and suddenly we're falling blindly. Until we try that little bit harder to stop the tumble.
So here I am.
Thankful that as dark as things have been this year for me, for loved ones, for those close to my heart... we still hold the lantern up.
We're alive and we get to wake up to newness every morning. Maybe a little less in heart and soul than the day before and maybe (hopefully) more than the day before.

I am grateful for these beings whose souls I get to saturate myself in so often in private moments... they rejuvenate all those around them and live through their hardships with such courage and such beauty.  They are inspirational.

From loss...

Its taken over a week for to get to this post.

Very few will identify with it..save those that have loved and do love their animals (dogs, cats, horses) intensely.

This year's Winter Solstice...was the longest day I could bare. The week leading up to it had just been littered with things that sent me off kilter,  sank me deeper into the impending downer... and then the drop off the cliff.
I woke feeling more positive than I had that whole week... if I look back at my social media that morning.
I got to the stable to find my Sonny, unable to get up...or unwilling.
Even as my father rushed to come help me, his unmoving silhouette in the stable entrance as I frantically tried to push and shove Sonny into getting himself up off the floor, was my conscience.  I knew all along.
To the deepest pits of my stomach I knew it was no use.
Even the safest place in the world, my dad's arms, couldn't change it.
Of all the days....a Saturday. The busiest vet days. Not a single vet could come help sedate him while we waited for "the man" who comes out for all these situations.
It was agony, not nearly what his must have been for 7 hours long I was helpless to make my Sonny's last moments more comfortable,  less painful...

When the man arrived, it was emotionless.  How many times he must have done this, he had it down to a process.
I went to stroke Sonny's face one last time, sobbing like a beaten child, and he whinnied so softly and painfully.
I was told to move away and ran for the side of the stable, covering my ears and unable to stop the crying.
You can hear it, no matter how tightly you shut your ears... that pop, and the seconds of silence that follow.
Then the chains and the crane being positioned, the swell of another lost life under the canvass of the truck...
My groom cried as he helped the man chain Sonny's ankles together... then another moment of silence. And that pop.
The last I saw of Sonny was the crane raising him up and the sight of his hooves just over tye rooftop of the stable.
My groom cried as much as I did. Sonny had been a part of our everyday lives here at home. His space still looming over the field and in the stable.
Some may not know that many horseowners "donate" their animals in death to the Lion Park... giving life where one has been lost, as it were.
But those last hours, if I could do it all over again, I know I would do it so differently. 
And the finality of it lingers painfully... in his folded blankets, boots, halters, fly masks....photos.

There is just a raw wound where peace longs to fill me for what happened... and then I am reminded that June will always be that to me.
I made the decision for my 32 year old Saddler in June 2009....and 5 years later the decision was made for me with Son of Man.

Leroy doesn't seem to have noticed much difference and I suppose I am thankful for these small blessings.
The destruction that followed Sonny for the first 2 weeks after Tiger's absence was gutt wrenching... so see that young little Leroy has remained calm, puts my soul slightly at ease.
I cannot say I will never be left with the same decisions ever again... my oove for these animals outways my own comfort if I'm able to give them a life worth having. Even if the end of these short lives leaves me distraught.

I do not regret a single moment I had Tiger and Sonny in my life. They gave me so much.

Press refresh...

I've been hanging onto hope for far longer than I could even admit to myself. And considering that right now there is no clear definement between work and personal... the hope I hold is all encompassing.

The hope of work and a job has hung over my head like a great big storm cloud, raging in its inner fury, black and lightening stricken...waiting to burst but never quite geting there.
Fuck that.
I made so many promises to myself after being retrenched and those are the things I was supposed to hold as my personal law...that all went with the wind of my personal storm.

Here I am, my loyalty for those who have done nothing presently to deserve it, stripped to the flesh and I am going to take care of me and the promises I made myself.
I am not filled with any kind of vengeance,  so whosoevers toes I end up tredding on, best not take it personal.

I have lost a great deal of self worth and being over the last 5 months, and it wont go into its 6th. I have my batshit crazy face on and war in my fists.

My compassion and kindness though vast and huge, should never make me a walkover.
And I fear thats what became of it...

Onward ★

Walk away, this is war...

Listening to Dead Letter Circus over a cup of coffee on a sunny Autumn morning.
I keep saying I could live like this... and I already am.
To define the word "live" ...have I lost my search for fulfillment to such a degree that I could be disappointed in all the good I am still surrounded with?
Probably.

I find my heart at no great loss either for moral epiphanies... relationships and so forth... lingering on these negativities will bring me no closer to the goal I thought I was headed for.
Sidetracked, stumbled, back up and walking.
"I've grown stronger, I can feel the change..."

Footsteps away...

It's been a long time since I have felt so miserably disheartened.
Job hunting is a thorn in the side of self esteem.

I will, however, persevere.

Inbetween the downers and inner turmoil... There is life.
Good people, a sense of humour unwilling to take the bullshit lying down and well... Really amazing family.
There is no one that needs to remind me regularly how great I have things most of the time.

If only the stress would let up though....I would rather have someone needing to remind me to be stressed.

Also... I am finding myself rather interested in linoprinting. Hmmmmm
Discoveries in the weirdest of times.

Will to live...

Though I'm not anti-tea....there just really is nothing that can compare to the C word.

Coffee, really does make my world go round... Well mostly.

Sitting at 4pm on the stoep, with my phone, the retreating storm and a cup of coffee...blissed.

Also, this is the perfect place and setup to currently contemplate life... And how quickly these last few months of being jobless have flown by.
In the vortex of what unemployment brings...comes the "fateful" encounters that make me put my feet forward.
This weekend, for example, was depressingly useless for all the work put into it, but a meeting that might not have happened otherwise.
I'm back to taking charge.

Hmmmmmm.

Captain's log...

The two weeks leading up to 28 November 2013 cannot be forgotten, though I feel forgiveness has been seeping in... and my unwillingness to fight it off may very well be a good thing. More for myself and my soul than anything (or anyone) else.

Yup. Though I sit here, still jobless, broke and a little unsure of whether to step with my left or right foot next... somehow, the panic stricken persona that took me over so many months ago... has either become a sedated acceptor... or its left and the actual me of now is "in control"... ha.

For those of us who couldn't give a rat's ass about having "the other half"...as it were, I think feel about losing a job, the way some may react or feel to a relationship falling apart.
I thought I had grounding on which to stand, a routine of some kind and a road I was headed along. I liked who I was becoming... I was working on all of those little niggly things in my persona that I had to assume (as no one gives a fuck about being honest anymore) for myself were things that needed work.
Resentment, vengeance, selfpity, anger at non-living things.
Losing my job (or being retrenched, more correctly) somehow managed to shake the ground beneath me.
Nearly four months later and I'm still not 100% that everything I had invisioned for myself may still be what I will see happening for myself now.
Maybe I'm also putting up my own (albeit realistic) obstacles, but I am treading lightly right now. Grabbing out for another job that will make me feel like I have a "spot" from which to launch ME from. Again.

And no... this is not self pity and I don't feel sorry for myself anymore.
Maybe having the friends and family I have, has allowed me to enjoy the other things around being jobless... maybe.
I've gotten to spend Monday mornings, walking by the weir and having breakfast with beautiful, spiritual beings that I'm blessed enough to call my besties.
I've gotten to sit and watch funny Youtube clips with my stepmother when we're supposed to keep her office running midweek.
It's Friday afternoon, overcast and I've been able to sit and nibble on my lunch while posting this... my pony trying relentlessly to get my old horse to play, neighbours' lawnmowers filling the silence and this amazing sense of calm about everything. Even around the 6 jobs I've applied for over the last two days.
So no. Self pity has no home here right now... and I guess that's one step closer to finding out what road I'm going to beable to stumble on, jobless or not.

There's also been a lot of time for introspection in the last few months...
There are people that have been on my mind alot over the last 2 or so months. People I still love dearly and to my core, that are no longer in my life, that I don't miss anymore.
There are people that are bound to me by the invisible, that I have let go of my anger for... and that I find I cannot love.
I have even found the type of person I didn't like in myself... as having been mostly washed away.

Maybe these are the things that have needed to happen. For all I could possibly know and understand.

But, if only for the duty of paying my rent and feeding my beasts, I do hold onto the hope of finding a job... really really soon. But from which to base part of myself on... I'm not so sure anymore.

This will not be a short term observation...

Falling from the sky...

For all my dramatics.... And yes, self pity.
I do believe I sometimes climb out from that "servitude" to negativity and open my eyes to the greater stuff.

I feel warm and fluffy. Whether that's the extra fabric softener or the fact I'm sitting in the sun (with no sunscreen smeared on either) we will never know.

I feel a twang in the very core of my soul, like me and those I love are going to have some GOOD life changing moments in the next couple of months.

And I'll leave THAT to fate.

Lines...

Nearly 6 hours ago, I got woken up from trying to sleep off a killer migraine. And under an hour later we were standing in Casualties at the nearest private hospital, booking in the matriarch of our family.

At 77, and pretty much during the 31 years of my existence alone, 4 weeks ago was the first time seeing my Ouma helpless in a hospital bed because she was sick.
I don't even remember her even having enough of a flu to get her bedbound. (This might have to do with the combination of her boere attitude and old housewife remedies).
To see the Ouma of 21 grandkids (yes 21...not including the married on grandkids) and 18 great grandchildren....oh and 2 great great granchildren... Lying bedbound in a hospital bed and for the most part helpless...was a shock to the balance of our lives.

She can still put the fear of God in you with a slap on the back. Bake up a storm that would put modern mothers to shame and all intertwined with an independance that should be imbedded in every woman of today.

After being out of hospital for two weeks (after being IN hospital for two weeks) ...getting the call that she stopped breathing and your aunt and uncle battled for MINUTES to bring her back. Well.
The way my parents and I reacted was heading straight to her, loading her in the car...and driving her to the hospital.
We even stood outside in the hallways making jokes about her being in the maternity ward at 77.... Ahem.
But the seriousness was all too apparent when she got moved into ICU for observation.
Leaving the hospital...the sense was still there. But sitting in my driveway crying like a little girl, updating family for the last time tonight via Facebook... I have drawn a short straw on emotional stability.

The absolute fear of sleep hangs over this house... Fear that is irrational and emotionally unstable.
All wrapped in that dreaded hope that "nothing bad will happen"...

Sigh

Let's see what tomorrow brings?

Breathing...and alive

We live in a time where "bi polar" has become the "in" disorder to have. Head shrinks apparently diagnose every Willy and nilly with it.

Far removed from the Victorian /Elizabethan view of the mental illness once known as "manic depression"... Where sufferers were drugged into vegetative states and locked in asylums.

But to really KNOW you have it and to really SUFFER with this chemical imbalance is on a whole different page to society.
Hi-polar and (negative) uni-polar are not hip.....and certainly not cool.

To watch someone happily taking part in a social activity and then in a split second be irrationally angry/upset/sad about the tiniest of things....is no way to wish it on anyone.

It takes little or nothing for a downer to happen. And sometimes these downers last more than a few seconds....or hours....or days.
Medication often only lessens the chances or instances of these downers happening.
Medication often only makes this chemical imbalance "manageable". The real fight happens in your head...that fight with logic and the irrationality of the mood.

And though the fight can sometimes be won with positive triggers...good comfort food...chocolate.
It again is only all in aid of managing something that those who *don't* suffer with it.....are ignorant to.

Having something that will forever leave you wondering what it would be like "to be happy for no reason"....is no blessing.

Drugging up a sufferer will not make YOU more understanding of each mood swing...and less so of each downer.
And thinking you're a hip emo kid by saying you have bi-polar....makes you worse than any Elizabethan practitioner of magical medicines that thought he could cure anyone from this "desease" of the mind.

To those who suffer from bi-polar and uni-polar. To those who fight the downers. Fight the mood swings. Battle everyday....

My respect for you is endless.

Orange juice might be the only cure....

....or at least I could dream it.

Stress, stress, stress.
It's pretty much gotten to the point where I'm not even hiding it well. Everyone that has seene since yesterday is asking why I look so stressed... Not that I know what stress *looks* like
Sigh

Finding a short moment of calm in the biggest glass of ice cold orange juice I can find. And hopefully, this will wash away. At least a little.