Turmoil

I don't feel like being serious today.

I had some very bad news on the weekend about a friend of my aunt's that was raped and murdered in her home. And my manager's nephew was shot in the stomach by robbers and subsequently died in hospital. Sometimes the evil in the world becomes so overwhelming you just want to shut it out and live in a bubble. A bubble where you can believe that you are immune to such trauma. I hate suffering. My whole being rebels against it. I just want to make things better. I want things to go back to the way they were. I want people to laugh and be carefree.

This weekend I realised that it's more than that. Suffering chills me to the core because I fear it above all else. I fear pain. Physical, emotional. My own pain, the pain of those that I love. Sometimes when I close my eyes I try to imagine what that pain would feel like. Just in case. To prepare myself. What it would be like to be raped... To be stabbed... To have a loved one torn from me... But I just can't bear it and push it from my mind. Maybe my inexperience with pain is the reason for my intense fear... The fear of the unknown.

Damn. And I didn't really want to be serious today.

Enough

I wish I could give a certain someone a piece of my mind right now. And a slap.

I've really had enough.

This whole year a certain individual has been the cause of most of my husband's lamentations. I'd forgive you for (initially) thinking that it's maybe something he has done, or his attitude towards things, but the other people who are in the same situation as he is, feel exactly the same. Unmotivated, treated like school children, undermined, unsupported, and most importantly spiritually malnourished (in other words, bloody spiritually starving).

This whole year I've had to sit by and watch how this individual slowly but surely chips away at my husband's self esteem. I have even confronted this person about this issue, but somehow the blame was diverted. The worst part is that I just don't think that this person gets it. I don't think she grasps that she might be doing something harmful. We've tried to explain, but to no avail.

I am just so frustrated right now. I've had enough. I want this abuse to stop. I want her to know what we're going through - what my husband is going through, what I am going through. I want to make her see that what she says actually hurts. I want her to be in my husband's shoes; in mine.

I've been praying for a long time for God to change her heart. I'm so ready for God to answer my prayers right now.

PTSD (or something)

Yesterday I was sitting at my desk, willing the time to hurry up a little, when all of a sudden there was a loud noise outside. I realised it was someone hooting. Incessantly. Students were running past the shop and there was a panic in the air. My first thought was that there had been an accident. But we ran outside and panicked students were shouting something about a hijacking.

I felt the adrenalin rush through my veins and my heart started beating faster and faster. We found out a few minutes later that a girl had been speaking on her cell phone and a guy had come up behind her and just grabbed her cell phone out of her hand. He’d sped off in a red car.

The girl was bordering on hysterical. She was crying and crying, she couldn’t even remember her own cell phone number. I wanted to hug her and tell her that I know exactly how she feels*. We were very nearly standing in the spot where I was hijacked.

At that moment (minutes after the crime) you just feel so overwhelmed. You just want to cry and cry. Partly because you’re so relieved that nothing worse happened, but mostly because you feel violated. Someone has come into your personal, intimate, private space and has violated your sense of security, and has done something that has stripped you of your power. Completely. You feel drained and vulnerable. The crime fills your thoughts – you can think of nothing else, and you replay it in your mind, over and over again.

The criminals think it’s just a cell phone that they’re stealing. But it’s so much more than that. For the next few months (sometimes even years) this girl (and others like her; me!) will be afraid to walk around by herself – anywhere. She will be scared to speak on her cell phone. She will be weary of all men (suspicious-looking or not). She’ll probably be scared of everyone for a while.

Only after months will she be able to walk on campus feeling reasonably safe again. And every time another crime happens in this road, she will relive her terrible experience. This is a scar that stays forever.

*I didn’t though, fearing that she might not be receptive to some random stranger who supposedly knows how she feels.

Losses

Today is someone’s birthday. Someone I care for a lot. Or cared for, at one stage.

We have many friends that come and go in our lives, but only one or two are really really good friends. I mean, a stay-up-with-you-while-you-cry kind of friend. A friend that will go to the 24 hour garage and buy chocolate for you in her PJs at 3 in the morning, and then eat it with you while listening to you moping and being depressed about a guy (that she doesn’t even like). A friend that will drop everything to be there for you, a friend that will help you finish your varsity assignment (even if it means staying up until the early hours of the morning), a friend that understands how you feel, a friend that really listens to you, a friend that knows all the skeletons in your closet and loves you still, a friend that really wants to know what’s happening in your life (from the big stuff to the really insignificant things), a friend that makes you laugh until your tummy hurts, a friend that laughs when you fart and doesn’t get embarrassed, a friend you can pee in front of…

I think you know what I mean. Either you are lucky enough to have someone like that, or you long for someone…

I used to have a friend like that. But in one fateful weekend it all went up in smoke. It all went pear-shaped when I didn’t really approve of the guy that she was with. A master manipulator. I hadn’t seen her for months, and was looking forward to an extended nightly chat about what we had gone through in the past few months, but he somehow convinced her not to spend any alone-time with me. They actually even went off to the pub the day we arrived – leaving us to “recover from the long trip”. The whole weekend we felt so out of place – it was like she was a different person. I finally plucked up the courage to put these things down in an email after we had left, and her response was devastating. Instead of trying to see the value of what I had written, she attacked me verbally, using all my deepest hurts that I had trusted her with against me. She said I was wallowing in self-pity, and that I was ungrateful, and loved to be friends with “problem cases”.

I was reeling. This friendship of over 5 years that I thought could withstand anything (we had been through a lot together; we had even lived together), crumbled in one weekend, because of a guy that she had known for 3 months. In the mean time she has married this guy. Our friendship has been over for more than a year now, but still, not a day goes by where I don’t think of her. Despite the fact that she hurt me to my deepest core, I still miss her. Even on the best of days.

Happy birthday, H.

Uninvited

I love braais. I love the atmosphere, the food, the (usually) good company. I love sitting by the fire, talking nonsense and waiting patiently for the food. I love drinking a glass (or two) of delicious wine. It encourages an atmosphere of relaxation.

This past weekend we had a marvellous braai. We went off into nature, and braaied from the early afternoon until way after dark. In my eagerness to have a relaxed time, I consumed one too many glasses of wine. I wasn't wasted, just a little tipsy.

When finally the food was ready, I wolfed it down. It was so delicious (and add the fact that I was rather relaxed from the wine), that I didn't even notice that I bit the inside of the lip. It was only when the effects of the evening had worn off rather unceremoniously that I discovered this unfortunate wound.

Now, three days later, it is still there. It has turned into a painful ulcer that just doesn't want to go away. I am reminded constantly (especially when I eat something) of the price I paid for delicious food and (a little) too much wine...