Hello, everyone! :-)

(i say everyone because the stats say there's people in Russia, Germany, Canada, India, Indonesia and Sweden reading our blog. i can't express how mind-boggling that is.)

the purpose of this particular blog post is to offload, i think. not in a 'sad-let's-get-tissues' type of way but rather reflective. it's been a while since i've wanted to pen my entire thought processes down so here it goes :)

1. IT'S A NEW YEAR!
duh, hahaha. on a serious note, however, it really is a new year. 2013 at some point just didn't seem like it would end. then there were bits of it that flew past so darn quickly that i barely had enough time to internalize it. i remember january to around early april were perhaps the worst of 2013 for me. a lot was going on with me academically, mentally and health-wise.

academically, it dawned on me that i was in the wrong field. the course i was doing didn't make me happy but i refused to acknowledge this for the longest time because so many people were depending on me to make them proud. i'm sure a lot of you can relate to the pressure that comes with wanting to serve your parents well and ensure that their investment reaps rewards. unfortunately, the seeds weren't too fruitful so a drastic decision had to be made: change of school and course.

which led to the mental part. the transition wasn't at all easy. i had gotten so accustomed to the freedom i enjoyed away from my parents..and i don't mean the out of hand freedom but rather the mental liberation that comes with living on your own. if i was stressed, i could take a stroll at 00:00 at not be asked where i was going or what i needed a walk for. i also missed the friends who had quickly became family. most importantly, i missed learning. i think that was the first time i realized the power of education. of course i'd hated my course but i yearned deeply for the discussions, debates and enlightenment that happened constantly within the university.

naturally with all these emotions and mental conflicts going on, the body responds by shutting down in order to jostle you a bit. and this happened with me. ironically, i hadn't even noticed that i wasn't eating as much and subsequently losing weight FAST.

fortunately, i have an phenomenal mother. she, a few days before my birthday, realized that i was sinking far too deep within myself and decided to yank me out. and what better way than to get away from everything? her, my younger sister and i took a vacation to the beautiful city of Kasane, Botswana.

i can guarantee that the google images do NO justice to this place. i'd actually just like everyone to pencil a visit to Kasane in their bucket list. as atheist as i am, i'm pretty sure god resides there. when all the forces of beauty, peace and tranquility collide, it's called Kasane. i honestly can't say enough.

anyway, :), while there, we took a drive to Zambia where i bungee-jumped for the first time ever. GUYS! this too needs to get penciled into the bucket lists. i guarantee NOTHING ELSE will test your faith in life itself like bungee jumping does. i remember looking 111 meters below me at the greenish/blueish water and questioning my own sanity. was i suddenly handing my life over to the shackles at my feet and the men that were to reel me up? if things went wrong, was i content with the way the nineteen years of my existence had been lived? had i said everything that needed to be said? had i done all that needed to be done?

all these questions were swimming, rapidly at that, in my mind and before i could answer, i leaped off. i simply jumped..threw myself into nothingness. i leaped into the unknown. all i was sure of was the river that flowed below me. that was all i knew, that was all i saw. i remember thinking that i was a lot like the river; blue (in a melancholic sense), green (with envy..envious of a better future, a life where i knew where i was headed and what i wanted, envious of the happiness that everyone else seemed to effortlessly wear) but more than anything else, like the river, i was flowing with a scary nonchalance. easily, slowly and with little sense of direction.

before my thoughts floated any further, the ropes that bound me to life jolted me back into reality and i realized i was at at the end of the leap. i must have hung upside down for about six minutes before i got reeled back up. i promise the person that jumped off the wooden ledge six minutes prior was not the same person who came back up.

i think that was the first step to recovery.

no actually, i KNOW.

Words are still beautiful.

by www.letters-to-nobody.tumblr.com

You’re sixteen and seventeen or nineteen and twenty and you’re starting to realise that growing up feels like slowly pulling out a thorn from your flesh. You’re sitting alone and watching the sun come up and everyone you know is still sleeping, or trying to, or pretending to. You learn to walk away from phrases like Let’s give this another shot. You simultaneously become more sensitive and more detached. You hand out parts of yourself like souvenirs, until you have trouble grasping onto what’s left. But — but — there are still the few people who are willing to peel back their skin for you, show you what’s underneath all the layers. And yet you learn to stomach your feelings and keep your memories to yourself, because when you tell a memory too many times, it either becomes more than it is, less than it is, or something different altogether, blurred by time and tampered by loneliness. And sometimes, you put his name into Google Images and stare at all the strange faces of people with the same name as him, scrolling page after page until your eyes blur and you momentarily forget the angle of his cheekbones and the lines on his palms that were once midnight roads to places you thought you could call home. At night, you lie awake trying to curl your palm around old feelings and old memories. But in darkness they are slippery, falling through the gaps between your fingers and joining the list of things that were once tangible, and now only wisps of feeling, absences in the shape of your empty hands. It gets harder to breathe. In your mind, you move from the bed to the couch to the floor to another country, another continent, another life altogether. You constantly try to reconstruct yourself, renew your body and mind into something someone might be able to love. Into something you will learn not to destroy. But when the curtains are closed and the dust settles into your hair, you learn that growing up cannot be transformed into anything else. That at 3.a.m. you cannot excavate yourself. You can only wait. And feel. Close your eyes. You are sitting at a piano in a bombed-out warehouse in a country where nobody listens to music anymore. Forget how your mother once tucked your hair behind your ears. Forget the words your father sliced through your skin. Forget the boys who liked you better with your shirt off. Forget the teachers who you loved but disappointed. Forget the person you used to be. Forget the person you want to be. Listen to music in languages you can’t understand. Watch TV on mute. Change your handwriting. Fold yourself in half, in half again, and once more. Slip yourself into a stranger’s pocket and let them carry you to places without names, to people without faces.

So cup your hands around the absence, and learn to grow into it. Learn to fall into it. Mould your body like clay. Light candles. Light lanterns. Light matches and campfires. Follow the light. Swallow the light. Impregnate yourself with all the light until the darkness folds in on itself and something new is born. Growing up is learning to be comfortable with the softness of your tummy, the body that you live in. Tattoo yourself with feeling. Touch the torsoes of trees. Burn incense. Mourn for the people you miss, the people you loved, the child you once were. Choke with feeling. Shake with feeling. Now stop. Slow down, breathe. Pull out your insides and thread your DNA into something that the world cannot control. Build yourself up from the ground. Knead the dough of your mind. Turn yourself into a feeling. Turn yourself into something you cannot touch.

Drag yourself outside, stand at the intersection and hand out the best parts of yourself, until you are left with something small enough to skip like a pebble over the lake, squinting into the sunset and watching as it stops and sinks slowly, softly, uncertainly to the bottom.

Now get up and walk away. Don’t you dare look back.

after foraging through my pictures.

Spring; Is the grass greener?

September.

Spring; calm, colourful and comforting the woes of Winter, crept silently in.
The door, left open and unattended by the chills of before, was welcoming.

Naturally, as dust does on furniture, Spring found an abode.

My Mind Has The Flu (Part Two)

he is blocked, my mind.

 

no amount of tissue aids

 

pharmaceuticals provide temporary relief

 

he is blocked nonetheless.

 

he aches, he yearns

 

he coughs

 

he hurts

 

fluids have done nothing

 

 

he is in limbo, can't make any decisions,

scared, possible consequences have him shaking in a corner

 

and he hides within himself

 

and he yearns for a time when he was once healthy

 

he yearns for a time when he could:

SEE music

HEAR beauty

SMELL love

TASTE photographs

and very importantly to FEEL the sillages of common law lovers.

 

my mind, shame

He has the flu

any remedies?

he is suffering



My Mind Has The Flu (part 1)

i am afraid of life happening to me

Age & Love; April.

April.

On the nineteenth of this month, I turned nineteen. Not only was another year added to my existence, but a new level of love was built and solidified on my heart. If ever I knew I was loved, I KNEW it on that day.

The purest of messages, like the one attached above, poured in from all spheres of life. One might find this normal because it was my birthday and naturally, people would be jovial. Quite the contrary applied for me. Just before my birthday, I'd been detached, heavily at that, from the land of the living. Perhaps it's safe to say I merely existed.

My birthday showed me WHY I existed and that's why it is perhaps by far, the best month of this year. I learnt love, I received love and believed in it again. What was taken away, had been restored. 

Lesson: Love lives.