Life and all that other crap....

Life is by no means a breeze in the park. But it is still a beautiful and wonderful experience. Granted some things can be painful, destructive and just down right scary.

I've been doing a lot of soul searching the last year. A lot!!

I've been revaluating my decisions, my beliefs, my habits....just about everything. Actually no I lie, I do this all the time. I'm constantly doing this in my life...it's just who I am I guess.

Anyway...I digress.

The other night I was home, and a few things happened during the day that set me on this path of thought analysis as I got home. I started to look at my life and I realised I have a really good life.

My mom and I had a huge conversation about two weeks ago and for the first time in my life my mom was receptive to what I had to say. She actually listened to me and what was more amasing is that she actually took my advice. This is huge. My whole life I've always felt that I had to fight for my mother's attention. I always felt like the odd one out in our family (still feel like this). I have an older sister and a younger sister and my dad died when I was 12. So it's always just been us girls. But I always feel like an outsider, looking in with my family. I love my mom and sisters and they love me, but there have always been "something" that separated me from them. I still can't define it and I doubt this will ever change. But I've come to accept this and for the first time, a couple of weeks ago, my mother actually allowed me to express myself without rejecting me or what I had to say. She actually listened. I feel really good about this and I can even see the difference in my mother since then.

Work is going really well, dealing with some "office politics" at the moment but not stressed about that. The people involved are underestimating my abilities and my connections within the organisation. Therefore I'm not too stressed and I don't really need to do anything to resolve the situation. It will resolve itself in time.

The only thing I do miss in my life right now is a partner. Granted I have this horrible ability to push guys away when I feel they get too close, I do want to be happy with someone. I want to come home to someone at night. I want someone I can share my dreams and fears with. Someone to have silly, crazy, fun moments with. But also someone who I can sit and have deep intense discussions with. I miss that intellectual stimulation. Not that the guys I meet aren't intellectual people...they just don't show that side. They spend too much time trying to impress me with the amount of money they have or trying so hard to get me into bed that they forget that I need intellectual stimulation before I will go down that road with someone.

A friend asked me the other day what my dream date is...she went on about this expensive dinner blah, blah, blah. Which for her is great, but that's not me. My dream date would be to go and sit on top of a hill or wherever you get to see a beautiful sunset (or sunrise). Sit with a bottle of wine, enjoy the beauty of nature around you and talk the whole night until the sun comes up. Talk about serious things, laugh and joke and discuss random silly things. This is what I want...not money or importance or a guy constantly trying to put the moves on me. Someone who actually knows how to communicate with me...

One day I will find this ;) I just hope that one day is a lot closer than it feels right now.

Too hard

Just under a year ago I made a new female friend. She is fun, crazy but honest and true. She will not sugar coat anything and she will tell me if I’m wrong, one of the many reasons why I love her. Over the last year we have become very close and dare I say I see her as one of my best friends.

A week ago the two of us were out having drinks, and while we were out I was having a phone text chat with this guy I really like. At a certain point during the chat I got irritated and just ended the chat right there and then.  My friend looked at me and said: “Ali, you are very hard when it comes to guys”. (Ali is her nickname for me).

This comment has haunted me ever since then. I never thought of myself as being hard, I always thought I allowed guys too much. Over the years I’ve had my heart broken a few times and I’ve had guys treat me really shitty. That unfortunately is the reality. After a very bad experience with a guy a year ago I decided that I need to stop allowing men to treat me like this. I’m an average looking girl with a nice personality and I’m independent and capable of taking care of myself. I do not need to have a guy make me feel that I’m not good enough.

I then adopted this attitude that if a guy likes me and wants to be with me, he will show me that. He will show me that he wants to spend his time with me and will go out of his way to see me. Not make me feel that he only sees me when he doesn’t have anything better to do and make me feel that I’m not a priority in his life. If he wants to be with me he will, if I have to start fighting for his attention, then he is clearly not into me and then I move on.

I move on…it is that simple.

But now I’m starting to think that maybe she is right, maybe I shut down too quickly and cut guys off too quickly. But where the hell is the balance? Sigh…so now my mind is running around and analysing prior situations with guys and trying to figure out if I did the wrong thing by walking away when I did?

I don’t know…maybe I am too hard sometimes. It’s just really difficult for me to just trust someone with my feelings. I’m very guarded when it comes to my heart, not because I don’t feel anything. Trust me I have all those feelings, I just don’t voice it easily. I’ve had too many people in my life mess with my emotions/heart.

I wish I could sometimes shut my brain off….and just put everything away and look at life with a smile on my face and not feel all the stuff I feel.

Sunrise Earth

I discovered the most amasing program on TV this past Saturday.  It was early in the morning and as usual, I haven’t had much sleep the night before. The wonderful world of insomnia ;)

I was flicking through the channels when I came upon a program called “Sunrise Earth” on DiscoveryHD. The program consists of hour-long episodes and in each episode, they’ve filmed a sunrise somewhere on earth. For the whole hour, all you see are these beautiful views of a sunrise and the sound of nature as they film this. There is no narration to it, it is just pure nature at its best.

I have to admit, I fell in love with this program. It’s on my PVR list and I now record the various episodes every single morning.  I “watched” the episode on Saturday and actually ended up doing this for 2 hours (the joys of replay). It was the most calming feeling that washed over me. It felt as if I was actually meditating during that time. It had such a calming effect on me. I loved it!

My mind never shuts down. I’m always thinking of 5 million things at the same time. Planning, analysing, processing…a never ending cycle of thoughts, and partly the reason why I suffer from insomnia. My mind does not shut down.

But on Saturday, this program had the most calming effect on me and for 2 hours it actually felt as if my mind was slowing down and my thought processes felt a lot more “focussed”. It made me realise I need to get out and spend time in nature a lot more. I need to go and find some time every week and just connect with nature and shut everything and everyone else out of my life.

I can’t wait to get home tonight and see where this morning’s sunrise episode was filmed. Silly I know, but it’s the small things in life that makes me happy.

Words

“I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close-set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high.”

 

Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

 

 

Such beauty and truth exists in words...

Change, truth and the darkness within

Some days you just have to stop, take a deep breath, and look back. Look back and see how far you have come. See and appreciate all the obstacles you have overcome to be able to stand where you stand right now. Focusing on the end goal, fighting for your dream is all good and well but sometimes it is also healthy to look back and see what you’ve had to do to get to your current space in this universe.

Today something someone said made me think of change…how much I’ve changed in the last two years, hell in the last 2 months. Change is good, but looking back makes me see all the changes I’ve made, especially in the last 8 years of my life. Never standing still, always evolving, changing, and adjusting so that I can grow. Grow not just as a human being, but also spiritually. I think people are so quick to forget that we are spiritual beings living a human life, and that our soul, our spirit needs nourishment.

People think I am dark and mysterious, when in fact it is just me acknowledging my soul. I acknowledge every essence of my being, good and bad, and I know that I need to understand my own nature to truly be comfortable in my own skin.

 
This is not easy, and it is a constant process. I will be very honest, I am more attracted to my dark than my good side. There was a time not so long ago where I allowed my dark side to run amok in my life, especially my personal life. I always keep my work life stable and fixed, I will never destroy that base because my work is my base on which I build a lot of things. But within my personal life I will admit, I allow the darkest corners of my soul to explore more and more. It scares me sometimes when I realise that what I thought was my limit before is no longer there…that I am capable of reaching beyond, always reaching beyond.

How do you explain this to someone else without scaring them?

I don’t know, I guess that is why I always keep myself distant emotionally from others…the fear of hurting them with my truth is very strong for me…I know who I am, but I fear it might be too much for the next person.

One day I hope there will be someone in my life who will show me that they are strong enough to see me. To truly see me and not feel frightened by what they see. I am not bad, I’m not evil, I’m just aware of who I am on every level of existence…

A lesson forgotten

As I left my home this morning, the air was filled with a particular smell. It’s hard to describe this smell, but it’s only there during spring time. This particular smell always reminds me of my grandmother (on my father’s side). She was an amasing woman. Probably the most beautiful woman I ever had the privilege of knowing.

 
So on my way to work this morning I had this flood of beautiful memories of gran. She was a very tiny, little woman but had such a huge heart. I cannot remember her once getting so angry that she had to use foul language. She was loving and caring and she loved to bake. I loved her baking, especially her homemade bread. She would always bake in the morning and when the bread came hot out of the oven my dad and I would be in gran’s kitchen ready for our first slice. The butter and apricot jam would melt into the bread, and that for me was heaven J

For the first 11 or so years of my life we lived on a farm. I grew up on a very Afrikaans farm and by the age of 11 my parents got a divorce. We lived in the beautiful house my dad built for my mom when I was around 3 or 4,  and then across from our home was my grandparents’ home. We all lived together on the farm. My childhood was spent mainly in gran’s kitchen, and I loved sharing my dad’s first morning cup of coffee with him in gran’s kitchen. So many good memories happened there.

One of my best and most cherished memories are the ones where every afternoon after lunch my grandparents would go lie down for a nap, whilst listening to their favourite story on the radio. The story was called “Wolwedans in die skemer”. I would crawl in between my grandparents while my gran would gently stroke my face, while the 3 of us listened to our story. Sleep was never far off for me during those moments, and that for me is the ultimate definition of unconditional love.

My gran taught me the beauty of unconditional love, of caring for others. She taught me the comfort of a hug, the calming effect of a friendly smile. She taught me that you can overcome anger, fear or doubt with love. She taught me how to love, and today on my way to work her memories reminded me of that lesson again.

 

I remembered what it means to love again, a lesson I fear I sometimes forget…

 

Fear

My soul finds comfort in the darkest corners of my heart
Within that space where only my truth resides
A space filled with horrors that only I can fight
That sacred space where so few have tried...

Your soul...unusually beautiful
Filled with hopes and imaginings
Filled with believes of the purest dreams
Your soul that loves life so effortlessly

I fear...