I'm back!

My, my, my.  It has been a long time, hasn’t it?  Last we spoke, I’d just moved to Cape Town, was still calling it the Mother Shitty, and was learning to be a human again. 

Well, Boolings, let me tell you, SO MUCH HAS CHANGED.  It was only when I was reading these old posts today that I realised two things.  1) I NEEEEEEED to start blogging again; and 2) I done growed up some. 

In the two and a half years since my last post, these are some of the things that have  happened:

• Mama Boo and I moved out from the friends we were staying with and, after a brief sojourn in what may as well have been a shoe box, we found an amazing flat with an incredible view, and have been there just over two years now.  Never been cosier or happier in a home since high school.  

•  I got a new fkn bed, and it's the love of my life!!! I've spent almost three years sleeping on a squeaky, springy, slumpy three quarter bed, and I was DONE with that noise, so I sucked it up and splurged on a double bed, which makes me feel like a princess with no pea.  It's the best.

• I got a job I loved, and worked my way up till I hit the glass ceiling that was in place there.  Asked questions and wanted more, and when I realised that wasn’t going to happen, and that it was sucking my soul out, I got my ass outta there faster than the Flash on his way to a ‘Netflix and chill’.

• After leaving the succubus of a job, I got my dream job.  I can’t rave enough about how amazing it is.  I know I always start jobs with this zing of excitement and positivity, but I’m almost six months in now, and I can honestly say I want to do this forever.  It’s THE BEST, even though it’s exhausting.

• Dated a very cute fuckboy (before that was an accepted term) for a very short period of time, and it all ended when he decided I was too much for him.  At the time, I was of course gutted, but realised that being too much for someone just means that they’re not enough for me.  Realised also that that’s okay, not everyone is.  (Old me would have lamented this for eons, but that bit about healing?  It seems to have sunk in somewhat.)

• Dated a smart guy, who made me laugh and think and moan, and thought that was enough.  It wasn’t.  Put up with two years of bullshit because I listened to my idiot heart instead of my much smarter brain (and MUCH smarter friends and family), and ended up with a break up text just shy of our two year anniversary.

• Found my tribe in Cape Town.  These people… I can’t even begin to sum up how incredible they are.  They’re nothing like I ever imagined my tribe to be, but my god, I couldn’t imagine my life without them!

• Let go of my obsession with hating Cape Town.  The me of three years ago would be scandalised to hear me say this, but I fucking love it, and I’m not sure I’d ever leave again.  Don’t get me wrong, Jozi will always be home, but it’ll always be there and I’ll always love it.  Cape Town, however, despite its awful drivers and onbeskof wind, has won my heart all over again.  It took a long time for me to realise it, but I think that now that I’ve settled and found something to fill my days that I absolutely adore, it’s made it easier to love, and to admit that love.

• Stopped denying my weirdness, and dyed my hair bright pink with a purple undercut.  And fuck me, I feel like myself again!  It’s funny; when I moved here, everyone said I’d fit right in with all the weirdos, but I denied that part of myself and tried to just blend in with the crowd and be a regular Jane.  FAIL.  I hated that, it made me miserable, and it never fucking worked.  Now?  Doing what I love, with people I adore and would take a bullet for?  I’m me again, and I’m happy again.

• Certified my old hipster status by FINALLY getting my ass to a festival.  Two years in a row, and I want to LIVE at Up The Creek.  Just look at this!  How did I miss this for so long, and how can I make it my life?  It’s the kitties titties, guys.  You should be there.  You won’t regret it!

It just goes to show, resisting change doesn’t stop it from happening; you just end up making the same mistakes over and over until you learn and grow. 

Having recently come out of the long term shitty relationship, I’m in a place of insane growth right now, and as much as it hurts, it’s fantastic and I’m glad for it.  I’m pushing myself to new limits, trying new things (shout out to Tinder and Secret Sunsets, and that’s just this week!) and becoming a whole new version of myself.  I think I’m gonna like this version more than the last. 

So, in short, now that I’m back, keep your eyes peeled for Wednesday Wonders, Tinder Vigilante stories, Shit You Couldn’t Make Up, and more! 

On healing, dog bites, and vodka

After a year or two like my last year or two, the word ‘healing’ gets thrown around a whole lot. After you get divorced, people say “You’ve got to give yourself time to heal” as often as they say “What happened?”, and almost as much as they say “Well, his loss.” And for a while there, you thought you were doing really well at this whole ‘healing’ thing. I mean, you were happy, you weren’t hurting a whole shit load, and you were getting on with your life. Or so you thought.  

Source

When The Ex moved out, I went straight into party mode. I mean, literally. He moved out on the Saturday, and I went to Park Acoustics on the Sunday, and I barely stopped partying until I came to Cape Town. That’s almost a year and a half of solid, epic party insanity. But when everything in my life really began falling apart (you’d think that losing my best friend and safe place would be the worst that could happen. Apparently not.), I realised that I needed a change and a chance to really examine what had gone wrong in my life, and that’s why I came to Cape Town. Filled with fear and dread, I packed it all in and shipped what was left of my life across the country… ‘To heal’, I told everyone. 

I seemed to have this idea that coming here would just be a continuation of my post-divorce life with the sea in the background, instead of Ponte, and with my mama thrown into the mix. Turns out, there’s a whole lot more to ‘healing’ than that. 

Since I got here, there has been a fair amount of partying, but nothing like what I’m used to. It’s true what they say about the pace of Jozi, guys. It’s insane. Jozi-ites work faster, drive faster, and party faster. We’re on another level entirely. What most people here call an epic night, is what I would have called ‘pretty cool’ before.* Although, I’ll grant you, even my friends in Jozi seem to be of the opinion that I take epic partying to another level. Nonetheless, there hasn’t been much of that since I got here. 

I have, however, taken introspection to another level. (It seems that I’m the kind of person who does things to the extreme. How did I not know this about myself before?) I’ve examined The Things That Happened To Me down to the tiniest detail, and analysed them to obscurity. And therein lies the healing, for me at least. Just this morning, I was writing furiously in my journal about discovering NEW magic, NEW wonder and NEW adventure. About discarding my expectations and past experiences of the above, and finding new and unique ways of finding things that make me believe again. These are the things I miss about myself - the childlike way I saw the world, and how I loved it recklessly. Since The Things happened, I’ve not seen the world that way. I became excessively (see?!) cynical about life, and more so about love. It didn’t stop me from loving recklessly, but even that recklessness became destructive, leading to even more cynicism. Great. Anyone got a muzzle for this vicious circle? 

Anyway, a thought spewed out onto the page, and it struck me. In fact, it glared at me first, and then slapped me a few times, to make sure I got the point. (Sometimes I don‘t process things until I‘ve written them down. And occasionally, thoughts force me to pay attention like this, instead of just zooming by). This particular one went like this: ‘Just because I don’t see things with child-like wonder anymore, doesn’t mean there isn’t wonder to be seen. I’ve been so wrapped up in not being who I used to be that I just haven’t seen it.’ Not being who I used to be. That’s an interesting one. I think it’s a two-fold issue: 
1. I’ve spent the last year and a half making a point of not being who I used to be. The angry girl, the unhappy girl, the fat girl, the girl who needed a man, the girl whose dad died, the stuck girl… That’s who I was before, and I was trying my damndest to shed those versions of me, because I didn’t want them to define me any longer. The trouble, of course, is that in my determination to shed the labels, I missed a crucial step… REdefinig myself. It’s not all bad, though… In my avoidance of dealing with what had defined me, and why, I learnt to really live in the present.** 
2. More recently - since I came to Cape Town and slowed the pace a little - I’ve grieved for who I used to be. The angry girl, and the party girl. In all my ‘I’m not The Things That Happened To Me’, I didn’t really deal with those Things. I was too busy trying to survive and keep going; I was using all my energy keeping up the appearance of being alright. And I was hard on myself when I couldn’t keep it up. But now that I’ve had no distractions from any of that - no sand to bury my head in - I’ve taken a long, hard look, and I AM dealing with it all. I’ve allowed myself - with much gnashing of teeth and wailing - to acknowledge all the shitty Things, and start processing them. The Fears. The Guilt. The Loss. (You’d think that I’d recognise grief, but it took me a while to realise that that’s what I was doing). I’ve grieved for the recent version of me, because I was happy. I just wasn’t healing. 

Guys, they don’t tell you this at school, but… Healing fucking HURTS. We all seem to think that it’s light and sunshine and roses, because how can anything hurt more than the things that have broken you, right? Well, guess what? IT FUCKING DOES. 
When you think about an injury, is it just the initial injury that hurts, or does the healing process contain pain too? When I was bitten by my dog, it hurt like a motherfucker when his tooth was actually IN my hand, and as he ripped it out. But did it stop hurting once I’d been to the doctor? Um… NO. It hurt like hell for weeks after that. Throbbing pain that kept me awake at night, and resulted in pharmaceutical companies making a few more bob out of me and my stupid dog. Once the pain eased up, it was still there, itching and stinging. The skin started to knit, but if I waggled my thumb, it all opened up again and bled and oozed and stung, and I’d have to start all over again. The tetanus shot and antibiotics made me feel like a very nauseous, angry zombie for 2 weeks, and the rabies shots bruised and itched along with the rest. And years later, it still aches in a certain kind of cold. 

The same concept applies to emotional pain, and heartbreak. If my heartbreak had been physical, it would most certainly have gotten infected and probably turned septic, because I just left it and hoped it would go away. Pouring vodka on a stab wound, like they do in the movies, doesn’t actually fix it. The stab victim - usually on the run because Hollywood - eventually ends up getting it seen to by a professional, and they put gauze on it, and he gets medication for it, and it hurts when he moves. Vodka might keep it clean-ish, but it doesn’t stitch it up, and it still stings like hell. Think of how the tough guy ALWAYS winces when he pours half a bottle of liquor on his wound. 

All I did for a very long time was pour vodka onto my wounds. (Literally, sometimes. So many empty Smirnoff bottles in my recent memory. Vodka is great, but not very helpful.) But I think that, perhaps, the skin and bone of my raw, infected wounds are starting to knit, finally. They will reopen from time to time, and bleed and ooze all over my life, because I’m not laying in traction until it’s all better. I’m living in spite of my pain. I’m living because of it. But, Goddammit, I’m living! And there will be scars. That’s what happens when you get ripped open and your insides are set on fire. But the scars won’t define me, either. I have to wear them for the rest of my life, but they don’t have to be ugly. I’ll never be the girl I was before, but that’s ok. Even stalagmites grow, no matter how slowly.


*I am not referring to partying in town, mind you. I haven’t done much of that, but I suspect even that couldn’t keep up to the insanity I’m used to.
** For the most part. There was a romantic element that took up all my ‘what-ifs’, but those are as pointless as nipples on a chest plate, so we’ll let that one slide.

Also, you might be interested to know that Cape Town - or Table Mountain in particular - is one of the healing vortices on the planet. That’s why so many people are drawn here when they need to heal. The Universe, right?