Death

On July 22nd 2010 death came into my life. Just after I got to work my mom phoned to let me know that my aunt had died. I didn’t believe her but I knew she had no reason to say anything like that. At that moment, my life became about my family. My life is about them; what they need and what I can do for them. I’ve never experienced death so closely. Rhandu was my aunt biologically. In life, she was and remains my sister and friend. She was one of the few people that had my back, no matter what. No matter what I do or don’t do for them. She was family.



Writing about her in the past tense brings tears to my eyes. Almost 3 months later and the pain is still so raw. There are no words that can describe how I feel. There is nothing that anybody can say or do to make me feel better. I don’t expect anyone to say or do anything. As I said at the funeral, I am waiting for someone to wake me up from this nightmare then I can call Rhandu and tell her that I dreamt she had died and it was amazing the support we got. I’m not waking up. On some days it’s ok, I get along and even when I think about her it’s not that bad. On other days I cannot believe it. When I do eventually believe it, it just hurts. It hurts so much.


Death has changed me. I feel nothing like myself. I’d rather spend time alone or with my family. I know that this is not how Rhandu would want me to live. Sometimes I can even imagine what she’d say to me if she was here. She’d tell me to pray and to not hold on to the pain. How I wish I could pray. Talking to God has become 300% harder for me since she died. I have so many questions for God but I find it difficult to ask. I can’t even get myself to go to church. Church makes me sad. It makes me want to cry.


I don’t want to be all about death and grief. I know that I am not special; I am not the only one who has lost someone special. Other people have been through worse. On the other hand, am I supposed to not feel pain because I’m not the only one who has experienced death? Its like, am I supposed to not eat because other people don’t have food? I think I have the right to feel sad but how long am I supposed to feel sad for? Do I have to pretend to be ok even when I’m not ok? I don’t know what to do or how to feel.


My relationship with my boyfriend has been negatively affected by this. I went for grief counselling to not have to burden him or anybody else. I keep my distance so I don’t just turn on him when the sadness kicks in. Sometimes I WANT to be sad because I feel guilty for having fun, being happy or experiencing pleasure. How can I be feeling all that when Rhandu feels none of it. We all want to believe the ones we love are with God and they are better off. I can’t get the image of her in a coffin inside the deepest grave I’ve ever seen covered with soil and reinforced with cement. We left her there and we are supposed to just go on with our lives. I don’t get it. I don’t get it at ALL.

Losing It

Like Aunty O (Oprah) and many other women all over the world, I have had weight issues for the most part of my life. When I was 15 I was a borderline anorexic who saw herself as nothing but fat. A classmate called me a fat pig and I believed it, so I stopped eating to no longer be fat. The year I turned 16 was my first year at university and I got so fat (yeah, I said/wrote it) that my uncle walked past me. He didn't recognise me. I actually think he didn't recognise me because he didn't know I was home and wasn't expecting to see me, not because I was chubby.

I've been fat, I've been skinny, I've been so fit that I had a stomach so tight it had the outline of a 6 pack and I've been average. Have I ever really been satisfied, NOT really. When I was fat I loathed myself and shopping for clothes cos I couldn't get bras and pants that fitted well. When I was skinny I didn't see myself as skinny. I was too hungry and dizzy to see anything. When I was fit I was so addicted to working out so I could just get that 6 six pack and that toned arm and and and. When I was average I didn't think much about weight but when it did cross my mind I would tuck in my tummy and think "hmmm…it'd be nice if it were like that".

In the beginning of the year that I turn 27 I discovered that I was grossly overweight (ok, maybe not grossly) and that my cholesterol levels were high. The lady who broke the news about my cholesterol levels asked if I did any cardio. When I said I did, she said that if it were not for the cardio the levels would be much higher. That, and the cleaning lady at work telling me I'm getting fat, was a wakeup call for me. Did I mention that the cleaning lady had only known me for about 3 months? Anyway, I thought to myself - I go to the gym more than the average person out there. I eat fruit and vegetables on a regular basis. I have been trying to lose weight but I am struggling. I realised that I needed help, a support system. I needed a lifestyle change. I didn't want to join Weighless because I didn't want to buy special food, weigh food and spend more time preparing than eating the food. I needed something drastic yet more realistic. I eventually joined Weight Watchers. It has been 13 weeks and I've lost 6.4kg. I am 1.78kg from my goal weight and I feel great. They always say they feel great in the magazines and the bill boards. I don't really FEEL any different. I look different. I'm proud of my achievement and it's nice to be able to fit into some of my old clothes. It sucks to not be able to fit into others. The important thing that I'm trying to put across though is THAT, I don't feel like this is a life changing moment. I don't feel like I've achieved something I should be rewarded for. At least that's how I feel today. I feel like I did what I needed to do. I shouldn't have let the weight get out of hand in the first place.

So today, like every other Tuesday after my weigh in, I update my darling boyfriend about my achievement. He's not the type to directly say "well done baby" but he'll tell a story that in some way is his way of congratulating me. This is the part where I'm about to confuse you (yes, YOU, the reader. Maybe some of you!) and maybe enlighten some men. Even though I do not feel great about the achievement, it is and was important to me and my health that I shed the extra kilos that I was lugging around. At the time when it was hard to take it off and I was feeling s%*tty about myself, I imagined that I'd be happy to lose the weight (and sometimes I am happy). The man in my life has been and continues to be very supportive even though he didn't understand the desire I had to lose weight. So regardless of how I feel about the loss (which he didn't know of until now) I still wanted him to say I did well. Cos I did do well. The joy of being a woman is that you can contradict yourself and you can have contradictory feelings about something and still expect your man to support you. It's crazy, I know and you guys don't get it but that's just the way it is. It's the way we are, well some of us.

Emotions

I'm an emotional being. I'm sure a lot of women and some men will identify with the statement. I'm not sure how many will identify with being an emotional eater, lover, friend, employee and writer. It does, however, seem like my emotions get me into trouble.

I'm an emotional employee; when things at work are not going ok I feel it and want to express myself to my lover. I recently read in a magazine that men are biologically "innate problem solvers" which explains why my boyfriend doesn't understand that sometimes all I want to do is vent (unless I explicitly say I want to vent of course) and he tries to fix the problem by either trying to make me laugh or see the bright side. Unfortunately sometimes I just don't want to laugh. As I become more emotional because he just doesn't get me it trickles to the other spheres of my life. I don't feel like going to gym because I'm so upset even though I know that the endorphins that I'd release by exercising would make me feel better. Instead I think that a big packet of chips and lots of Coca Cola and eventually some ice cream will make me feel better. It only makes me feel worse because when I look in the mirror I see and feel fat (speaking of which, is fat a feeling?). I'd promised a friend that we'd hang out but because I've managed to let my emotions get the better of me I cancel on a friend who probably needs me.

It's not all bad news though cos I think I write my best pieces when I'm most emotional but that's not the kind of writer that I want to be. What's gonna happen when I become emotionally intelligent?

I was hoping I'd end the blog with some profound message. I don't have one. I just wanted to "vent."

I Hate...

I hate waiting.
I hate being late.
I hate it when a person says to me "relax".
"My cousin likes to be on time. Why do you hate to be late?" he asked. I couldn't answer to my own satisfaction. My answer was so as to defend myself and what I hate.

I blog as I sit at a coffee shop waiting to meet my writing partner for our regular Thursday meetings. He hasn't pitched yer, 40 minutes later than scheduled. He hasn't responded to my sms either. I usually confirm our meetings in the morning or just before I get here but he hates it when I do that if we haven't rescheduled our meetings. The reason I always confirmed was because I didn't want to make the trip for nothing.

Is this the part where I say "waiting gives me an opportunity to get to things I wouldn't have been able to get to otherwise" or do I say " I hate waiting"?

Saying Goodbye

We live on borrowed time - How are you using yours? What would your family, friends, neighbours and colleagues say about you at your funeral? How would they remember you?

Heavy questions aren't they? As I sat at the funeral service of a friend who is also a friend's husband and my brother's very close friend those questions crossed my mind. Ganyani was a man so full of life and seeing him lying so still and lifeless made my body shake involuntarily and it just broke my heart. I cannot even begin to imagine how his wife is feeling. I cannot begin to imagine how his family and very close friends are feeling. The sad reality is that death is imminent and we don't know how and/or when we are going to go. If we did, I'm sure we'd say goodbye even though saying goodbye is hard.

When someone I haven't spoken to in a while crosses my mind, I will pick up the phone and call him or her. If it has to wait I'll set a reminder to do it later. I will try my best to use the borrowed time wisely. To not let things left unsaid. I am sure that tomorrow will come because I'm alive and I'm hopeful but I will try my very best to tell and show the people I love and care about how I feel when I and them are still on this earth.

Don't put things off till tomorrow if you can do them today...I think I'm starting to get it; life is short. (it's a pity that the end of a great life had to be my reminder). RIP Ganyani, you are sorely missed.

Love Doesn't Hurt

Why is it that we seek to be loved by people who don't love us and we push away those who love us? How many times in your life have you found yourself pining for someone who didn't know you existed, who treated you badly or just didn't feel the same way about you? It's happened to me a couple of times and it took a while for me to break the habit (for the lack of a better phrase). I had to learn to accept that some friends won't be there forever, some cousins might just turn on you and sometimes the people you least expect to like or even love you would be the ones who DO really love you.

Until not so long ago I believed that love hurts. That loving someone was painful and the best thing I can do is love my family cos they love me back, they are genetically coded do so and regardless of what I do or don't do their love is guaranteed. Why should I expect someone I met a year or even 5 years ago to love me? Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with being in love or loving someone, the problem is when it hurts.

A person who loves you won't hurt you; physically, emotionally or in any way possible. If he/she does, it's not intentional and he/she will try to fix things as soon as he/she realises what he/she has done. When a person who loves you sees that you are hurting he/she will want to move mountains and cross valleys to take your hurt away. When loving someone hurts then that person does not deserve your love. Think about what it is about loving that person that is hurting you. Is it the lack of reciprocation, is it him/her being emotionally unavailable, is it physical abuse or does it just not feel right?

When you are in love don't you just feel like you are on top of the world. Don't you feel like telling the whole world how you feel? Isn't love that feeling that makes you want to smile just from the thought of the person that you love? That feeling that makes you think you can conquer anything and knowing that should something want to conquer you, the person you love will help keep you strong?

I truly believe that love doesn't hurt. The moment it starts to hurt it's NOT love. It's something that you want to believe is love or its misplaced.

We all have different takes on love at different times in our lives. This is mine at this point in my life. What's yours?

The Beginning

I've always been able to articulate my thoughts and feelings better in writing. I even deal with my emotions better when I can somehow see them on paper. I remember when I was younger and thought my mom owed me an apology, I couldn't talk to her instead I'd write her a letter. Over the years I've learned to express myself by speaking but writing still remains the easier and more effective method for me.

I want to write more. At times I sit and trace words with my fingers on the armrest of the couch. Sometimes I think thoughts and ask questions that amaze myself and those around me. Writing is a way for me to get those thoughts and questions out of my head. Is blogging going to help? I think and hope so
So here's to the beginning of a new era...to A Lil' Bit of This and That :)