As it withers

Ever wonder about the exact moment when things change? When does something become something else? This question can apply to almost every area of our lives; when does a foetus become a person? When does a casual fling turn into forever after? When does a woman become a mother? When do you go from a living, thinking thing to dead? When is something no longer what it was before it became altered?

I think (I may be very, very wrong) that it was German philosopher Immanuel Kant (by the way, ever notice how many, many influential philosophers are from Germany? Sometimes I think it’s as though they’re trying to make up for that whole sordid killin’ Jews business.) who tried to answer this question. If I remember correctly, he used the analogy of a sinking ship to illustrate this question of alteration. Imagine you have a boat, and it is starting to sink (for whatever reason). So you start taking wood from another boat in order to repair the sinking vessel. Once you’ve successfully completed this task, you still refer to this newly altered boat as YOUR boat – as though it isn’t comprised of something entirely else, hasn’t had a complete change, and isn’t, actually, something new. (Which it actually is, if you think about it.) We do this to everything in our lives.

Speaking of philosophy, I’ve been sitting with the crisis of my Self since the drama with the eggs, an event that I am loathe to talk about. I’ve taken all my feelings about this, and shoved it into a pot, and there it has festered and grown and mutated until it spit out a version of me that I cannot recognise. It’s as though I’ve become an appalling poem, a badly formulated boy band song, a misshapen clay-something which doesn’t even resemble the original. The philosophers call this an Existential crisis, that is to say the questioning of the Self, the evaluation of a life lived where you always come up short, and finally, the feeling that your life has no meaning and that everything is pointless. Admittedly, this sounds laughable and ridiculous, and in writing this I am cringing at how much I sound like teenage me; teenage me who questioned the existence of God, clawed her skin until it came undone, attempted suicide and had none but her diary to complain to. I remember who I used to be, and I’m confronted with a rather absurd idea, one which cannot possibly be true, and yet somehow seems to be real, given how I’m frayed at the moment: I never dealt with anything life threw at me, and have been living in denial for approximately 9 years.

I shudder at this thought, and wonder if I am right. I think about how I normally “deal” with problems, and realise that I never do – I simply talk, and talk, and talk until they disappear, or become less important for that moment in time. I remember fourteen-year old me, and I want to will myself not to be her again, not to be that version of me who does not want to get out of bed , who feels as though she never has and never will belong, who eats her hair and chews sandwiches in the bathroom at school, and who has perpetual insomnia because she has so many issues that she cannot will her mind to shut the fuck up. I remember her and it makes me want to vomit my feelings, slit my throat and dig them out so that it will be better, so that the emotions will stop choking the drive, my passion, my life from me. I take a biopsy of this cancer, and find that it has turned everything to black, that it has altered my being, spoilt and rotten I have become, so much so that I want to throw gasoline onto my organs and watch it burn.

This has become the canker of my existence; it has fed upon my conception of my Self, it has devoured my ability to write, it has inflamed my need to be perfect, to never falter, to be stronger, but not merely has it done this, but it has also taken my ability to be vulnerable from me. I am strong, but at a cost so great that I’d much rather be weak. I survived, but I don’t go a day without wanting to scream. I pick fights, I rage, oh how I rage.

When exactly did I alter? At what point in time did I replace me with this version of the self? How can I tear these chains from my wrists? How much blood do I have to choke on in order to suck all the venom from my veins? To paraphrase the Naked and the Famous: oh it withers, brittle I fucking shake.

Reflections

My most recent blog, “The limits of kindness”, about my near-death experience following my decision to donate my eggs to strangers, has had quite an effect on some readers. The last paragraph in which I briefly mention my anger and bitterness, in conjunction with the loss of my ability to ever receive fertility treatments again [hence no pregnancy unless I go against everything I believe in, and sleep with a man, or acquire a turkey baster], especially elicited reactions from a variety of people. As I did not really delve too much into how I was feeling last time, I decided to write this blog, as a follow up, to recount some of the emotions I felt and am still feeling.

When I think about this drama with the eggs and the collapsed liver and the ICU, one of the very first images that pops into my brain, is of me trying to stop my jaw from locking itself. In the two days before the doctors discovered that my lung had collapsed, I felt as though I was suffocating; I was in pain, however I could not stay in the hospital bed, could not lie there and wait for something to happen, or not to happen, could not sleep, was not allowed to eat and spent most of my time staring at the ceiling. I felt a little like I was on the verge of insanity, or at the very least an outburst of some kind. For some unfathomable reason, my mouth was clenched shut, my teeth grated on each other, my jaw locked and painful. I started getting headaches from the clenched jaw, chipped a tiny piece off one of my teeth, and had to put my hand inside my mouth and literally pull my jaws apart to relieve some of the pain. I don’t know why this happened, I only know that I felt as though I was being stifled, drowning, suffocating.

Another memory I keep replaying in my mind is the endless x-rays. The waddling towards machines, the pressing down of metal onto my skin, the endless waiting for porters to collect me, my inability to stay still, the flashing of lights, the weighing down of lead jackets and the hospital staff who had to try and keep me upright. I don’t know how to explain how caged I felt, or how to convey how scared I was. I was petrified because I was alone, scared witless that something terrible would come up on the x-rays, and even more so that nothing would pop up on the screens.

I was angry with the gynaecologist for not listening to me when I informed him that I was far from okay, livid that he was not doing anything to help me recover, exasperated that he had not noticed my collapsed lung, and downright pissed off that he hadn’t adequately conveyed the risks to me.

Mostly, however, I felt nothing. I didn’t have the energy to feel anything at the time. I was continually tired, and remember being shocked when they measured my stomach, which had grown roughly 20 cm’s. “[In] shock[ed]” is probably the one of the few words that I can apply to what I was experiencing: I was stunned by the turn of events, and terrified that I would die. I felt hopeless, and miserable, and I was afraid that things would not get better; that I would not recover. This emotion was amplified when I came back from x-rays to find nurses rushing into my room, proclaiming that I had to go to ICU. When a surgeon that I had never laid eyes on until then hurried into my room shortly after the nurses had begun to tend to me, talking about surgery and my lung and blood and water, I felt like the bottom of my world had fallen out.

After my life had been saved and I lay in the ICU with the pipe draining fluids from me, I felt like I was hyper ventilating [which I kind of was, since my right lung was moot and I was on oxygen], that the world would never be right again, and that I had been altered in ways that I couldn’t articulate. My mouth was clenched shut, my teeth yet again grinding against each other. My shoulder ached, my muscles cramped, and I sobbed. I lay like that for some time, until eventually the medication took me to some place filled with nightmares, but devoid of pain. When I woke up the next day, a catheter was inserted. I don’t know how to explain how it feels to have strangers touch you, see you, perform procedures on you; how helpless you feel, how violated, how vulnerable.

When you’re that sick, you don’t read books, or chat on bbm, read facebook or catch up on twitter. You don’t think about life, you don’t philosophise, and you certainly do not think about food, exercise, drinking, or partying. You think about escaping. Your thoughts are restricted to the moment you are living in – they are confined by the pain you experience, the emotions you feel, and the immediate things you need in order to survive. You don’t worry about having children [or being told that you'll never be able to have them the way you wanted to], money, or the world.

When you are finally all better, when you get to go home and suffer in your bed, you discover that everything has changed. You aren’t allowed to exercise, lift heavy things, have to do breathing exercises five times a day, aren’t allowed to eat carbohydrates for dinner, and have a sleeping pattern which is entirely foreign to you and your schedule. You discover that your insides ache, you have an ugly scar, that you will feel nauseous for weeks to come, cannot walk 5 minutes without vomiting or fainting, and that you have to dip all your food in olive oil. You notice that whenever you have to talk about the drama with the eggs, you feel bitter, resentful and angry. You come to find that you live in denial, that you haven’t accepted or made peace with the extent to which your life has been altered, that you are pissed about the fact that you aren’t a smoker anymore, and that you feel humiliated. You feel a million contradictory emotions, in a thousand degrees of grey and black and white.

You don’t know much, but what you DO know, is this: you have to tell your story, and you will never donate your eggs again, even if Oprah Winfrey personally begs you to do it. You cannot suffer the humiliation again, and you cannot feel as though you’ve lost a piece of you that you will never get back again. You feel a lot of things: guilty, like a failure, afraid, happy, angry, resentful, rebellious, bitter. Afraid, afraid. You feel, and from your point of view, that’s a hell of a lot better than where you used to be and for now, that’s enough.

The limits of kindness

I have been quiet, yet again. This time, however, I do have a very solid excuse; something profound and life-altering happened to me two weeks ago, and since then, I have not been entirely me.

To start off this story about my near-death experience, let me go back to December 2010. At the time, I was working for an internet provider in Stellenbosch, had been dating Izzy for about 3 months, weighed 17 kg more than I do now, and had started imagining the kind of life that I wanted for myself.

Amongst other things, this introspection resulted in my decision to go to university. I needed to become something other than a secretary, and academia whispered my name. I decided that giving up my independence (as gained through employment) was worth gaining knowledge, a degree, a career. Furthermore, I concluded that the type of life that I hankered for was one which included children; I had always wanted a 10-toed wonder. I wanted my life to include Izzy, a home, a stable career in academia and a baby (or three); I wanted to be a mom, to play and giggle and bake and read bedtime tales.

Being a mother and being a lesbian are, however, not things which go together, necessitating contemplation in order to answer the burning question which flamed me to near-insanity: how? How would I acquire a mini-me, a baby unicorn, a screaming, shining illusion of rainbows and lollipops? I refused to sleep with a man, so that option was immediately abandoned. The idea of surrogacy was daunting, and seemed impossible. The concept of adoption sounded like a stumbling torture of rejection. Eventually I decided that fertility treatments were the best option. Sure, it would cost me roughly four year’s rent, but it would give me exactly what I craved: pregnancy. Big-bumpedness. Glowing, rounding, joyfulness. This being decided, I assumed that at some later stage in my 20s, I would need sperm, and thus, when a colleague told me of the fertility clinic his mother was employed at, and of the egg donors they required, I began to think.

I was thinking of karma. Izzy and I spoke, and we filled out application forms, and we submitted ourselves and pledged our eggs. How many women do you know who are unable to have children? How many stories have you heard of parents who cannot build families? How many, how many, how many. And all the need is an egg. One egg, one miracle, one step to realize a fervent desire, a never-ceasing dream. And I, well I could give it to them.

I received a call roundabout January/February of this year from the fertility clinic – a couple had chosen me, my eggs and my intelligence (or lack thereof). The process took less than a month to complete: it started with psychological assessments, next came blood work and medical tests and checks and finally came the treatments. I was given a bag, filled with needles and medication and alcohol wipes. I injected myself once a day with lets-not-attempt-to-pronounce-it medication, designed to stop my hormones. After some time had passed [during which the receiver's body had to synchronise with mine], I was given a second set of medication, which was incredibly complicated to mix and inject, with the intent to stimulate my eggs. They grew massively, roughly to the size of apples, and were large in number: 17.

Come mid-March I was bloated, continually had to urinate, had slight stomach cramps and felt as though I was pregnant. Cigarettes and alcohol started to taste bad, and nausea set in. The operation in which they were to remove my eggs was scheduled for 28 March, and I was told that it went well. It took roughly 20 minutes for the aspiration of my eggs to be completed, during which I was under local anaesthesia, and when I awoke, I was in a mild amount of pain. The gynaecologist informed me that I would be slightly bloated for roughly 14 days, and that I would experience slight discomfort, but that I should be right as rain come the Monday [this was the Wednesday].

Come Monday, however, I was hospitalised. What had started out as mild discomfort could soon not be dulled by morphine; I vomited for three days straight, my stomach was distended and painful, and I was scared. I drove, in tears and whilst vomiting, to the gynaecologist on the Thursday, who sent sent me for bloodwork, examined me and informed me that I was “fine”. The weekend I spent in various forms of what I assumed was death, and on the Sunday morning Izzy found me on the bathroom floor, howling with pain. I was rushed to a hospital in Durbanville, where the doctors were unable to help me, and took hours to assist me. First, they treated me for an infection and then, several x-rays later, it was decided that they would operate, at which point I called my father.

My family were of course unaware of my decision to donate my eggs: the concept of lesbianism was already a difficult one for them to come to terms with, and I knew that this would be something that they would not a) understand, or b) support. Izzy has worried and unable to help me, and I was sure that I was going to suffer a stroke or blood clot at some point – as things stood, I was already severely dehydrated and the drip which they had me on was not offering any comfort or relief from the constant nausea and searing pain in my stomach. When my father arrived at the hospital, it had been arranged that I would be transferred to Stellenbosch, where they could better help me. My ordeal was however not over; I would get a lot worse before I would feel better.

Upon arrival at Stellenbosch mediclinic, my gynaecologist who had aspirated my eggs examined me, and found that I was suffering from something called Overian Hyperstimulation Syndrome (OHSS). In layman’s terms this is: “a complication from some forms of fertility medication. Most cases are mild, but a small proportion are severe.” Three types of OHSS occur: mild, moderate and severe. I, of course, managed to suffer from severe OHSS, which is characterised by: “fullness/bloating above the waist, shortness of breath, pleural effusion, urination significantly darker or has ceased, calf and chest pains, marked abdominal bloating or distention, and lower abdominal pains (in addition to mild and moderate symptoms).” To put it in terms most people will grasp: I had gone from weighing 58 kg to 69 kg in the space of four days, had not peed in two days, my stomach had swelled to 93cm, I appeared roughly 7 months pregnant and was struggling to breathe because my stomach was filled with fluid from the operation.

The treatment for OHSS is this: nothing. The only thing they can do is wait it out, whilst ensuring that you stay hydrated and medicated in order to curb your pain. The first two days in the hospital were incredibly frustrating: there was nothing they could do for me, no means to speed up my recovery and I was not given any answers as to when I would start feeling better. Come Tuesday evening, I experienced increased trouble breathing. The gynaecologist was consulted, however he reported that I was fine. My blood tests were fine and I was fucking fine. On the Wednesday, however, I called for the nurse to bring me oxygen, and implored her to get a doctor as soon as she possibly could; I felt as though I was suffocating.

Thankfully a surgeon showed up, listened to my lungs and sent me down for an x-ray; within an hour they realized that my right lung had collapsed from the fluid moving from my stomach to my chest cavity. I was not, to put it mildly, fucking fine. My father, who lives two hours from Stellenbosch, had driven to the hospital on a hunch, and upon his arrival was informed that they would be performing emergency surgery so that I would not die; as it were, I was pretty damn close to the light. The likelihood of a lung collapsing due to OHSS is less than 1%. As always, I am the minority. I was rushed to ICU, where the doctor barely had the time to scrub or wash his hands, applied a scalpel to a space between my ribs and sliced me open. The pain was excruciating, but more so was the moment that he inserted a pipe into my ribs in order to drain the fluid. I am told that they heard me screaming outside the ICU – I don’t remember much but that I internalised. My first thought was: oh fuck. My second thought was about God. And my third was that I would never smoke again.

When I opened my eyes again, the floor was covered in blood and a yellow-ish liquid; the pipe in my chest cavity was attached to a bottle, into which fluid drained. In the space of less than 5 minutes, roughly 5 liters of blood and water had rushed out of my body. I was in severe pain, on an oxygen mask, could not move, and my shoulder was suffering from transference [whenever you experience pain in your abdominal or diaphragmatic area which is too great, it moves to your shoulder]. I was given an extremely heavy dose of painkillers, and eventually drifted in and out of sleep. When I opened my eyes on the Thursday, I was still in incredible pain, however it was slightly dulled by morphine. A catheter was inserted; I was ordered to eat, however could not. I had not eaten in six days.

During this time I allowed no one but my father and le girlfriend to visit me, both of whom were sources of great comfort to me. My father was understanding, caring and scared, and Izzy was loving; a wreck, yet solid in her support. I was given around-the-clock care, barely slept, had horrid nightmares when I did, experienced moderate nausea and severe pain, was swollen and smelly, and in general not incredibly enthusiastic about life. My skin had turned a yellow-ish colour, I was unable to lie on either side or move anything but for my legs [and experienced muscle cramps in all other areas due to this], and had to undergo physiotherapy for my lung, which was still draining blood and fluid.

I was finally transferred to the general area of the hospital on the 6th of April, where I underwent the rest of my recovery. I allowed visitors to sit at my bedside, could now walk for about five minutes without fainting or experiencing too much pain, and had resumed eating again. As a bonus, my catheter was taken out – horrid, horrible things they are – and I began monitoring the draining process: it was necessary that complete cessation took place before the drain could be removed. Once that had happened, I was allowed to go home on the 9th of April.

Why have I told you this? Because you need to know. You need to know that you could die at any second. People have repeated this fact throughout history, yet it is not until you very nearly die that you realize that you COULD die right now, in this instant. I have ceased smoking; if a collapsed lung feels like THAT, then lung cancer will feel like… What? The pain of a collapsed lung is unfathomable, and the pain of lung cancer even more so. Whatever it is, however it steals your light, I have no intention of experiencing it. I have told you this because somewhere, out there, someone might read this and think that egg donation is a harmless process; someone might have even worse luck, and die from it.

The woman I donated my eggs to, is pregnant. The gynaecologist informs me that my seat in heaven is awaiting, that I have accrued enough karma to last a lifetime, that it wasn’t for nothing. Your suffering has meaning: bullshit. Unnecessary pain is exactly that: not necessary. Your life has meaning, your existence brings joy to others and you should never, never compromise that (especially not for a stranger). Kindness has its limits, and I sure as hell have reached mine. Did I rememer to mention that as a consequence, I will never be able to receive fertility treatments again, thus robbing me of the opportunity to have children with my partner? As I said: kindness has its limits, and I have reached mine.

To my dearest

My oh my, it is March.

I have spent the past month in denial, it seems. Somehow, between rushing to class and writing what felt like a hundred tests, I had convinced myself that I’d posted blogs. Uh oh. However, let’s not focus on this too much; now that we have established that I have been neglecting my duties as a writer and blogger, allow me to get down to the dirty business of catching you up on what’s cooking.

Er. So. Uhm. Well. Ahem. “What’s cooking?”, you ask. I remember, in the far, far, extremely far back past, how much I used to delight in writing letters. As an experiment, let’s pretend that you’re living somewhere exotic of your choosing. It might be Mexico, Canada, Seattle or Cuba. It could be Norway, North Carolina or Russia. It might even be Saudi Arabia.

You’re walking the streets of Mexico, en route to your favourite little cafe on the corner of a busy night street. As you enter the cafe, you seat yourself at the bar, order a Tequila from your favourite barman, and listen to the throb of the crowd. You dig into your handbag, your fingers touching a lighter, a pack of cigarettes, a cellphone, and finally, the soft edge of…

Or, it’s a rainy day in Seattle. It always rains here, but you don’t mind. In fact, you love waking up to the drum of water beating a slow rhythm against your bedroom window. You roll out of bed, shuffle into the kitchen and switch on the kettle. You notice something at the door, and rush forwards, hand outstretched, heart hammering…

It’s a warm, windy, gorgeous day in North Carolina. You stroll along the peer, passing old people and au pairs with children in strollers, lovers holding hands and others, like you, who have come here simply to think, to breathe, to…

Let us now suppose, for experiment’s sake, that you aren’t as consumed by 2012 technology as normal people are. You’re one of those people who still enjoy communicating the way that folk used to: in person, or by mail. And no, I don’t mean Googlemail.

You’re sitting in a cafe in Mexico, holding a letter. You’re standing in front of your door in Seattle, an envelope clutched in your hand. You’re walking along a pier in North Carolina, unfolding a piece of handwritten paper.

Date: 26 March 2012
Place: Bed, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Time: Too early to care
Mood: Euphoric
Listening to: The hum of a fan

To my dearest friend/lover/imaginary unicorn,

I haven’t written to you in what seems like ages. I am lying in bed, wearing those green skinny’s you know I adore, smoking a cigarette, with an Eeyore hot water bottle draped over my stomach.

The weather here is hot and humid, and I’m too lazy to switch on some music, too tired to write the History essay that I should be writing, and le girlfriend has gone into town to buy us a pizza. In short, I am happy at the prospect of being fed, and even more ecstatic with the knowledge that soon I’ll be able to relax in bed with my girl – something which I haven’t been doing much of lately, given my workload.

So much has happened since we last communicated that I’m a bit flabbergasted as to where I should start with my story.

I have been feeling a bit lonely; this year has sent me on a rollercoaster ride and, to be frank, I’m not sure if I am running or standing still most of the time. I’m suffering from some abandonment issues; I have lost three best friends in the space of months, and it has been taking it’s toll on me. I haven’t had the time to write my novel or my blog, which, as you know, is severely depressing. This has lead me to contemplate the following: is it really worth it?

Is sacrificing your dreams worth reality? Does money truly make the world spin round? Does sweating the small stuff, the minute fights, the battles over pride, really pay off in the end? Will this all matter in a month, a year, a lifetime?

I have spent too much time running, instead of looking. I have spent too much time working, instead of playing. Too much energy I have wasted on fights which will never affect the greater scope of my life. I have been missing the big picture in my endless strive to make it through the labyrinth that is every day.

It’s funny how quickly the human sacrifices his or her dreams for the rat race. It’s surprising to see how often people give up the things that bring them true joy, for a moment’s ecstasy that money brings. We have become so wrapped up in the temporary happiness of wealth, that we forget that it’s tainted with the loss of self.

Where ever you are, I hope you are chasing what you really want, instead of what you are forced to run after. I hope that when the choice between being penniless as a dreamer, and being rich as a nine-to-fiver presents itself to you, that you will let your heart dictate your decisions, instead of your wallet – even if your wallet is like an onion, and you cry whenever you open it.

Some people say that it’s better to be driven, than to drive. They say it’s better to be flown, than fly. To those people I say: you are your own captain. You are your own master. Integrity, freedom and true happiness will always weigh more than your bank account. Better to be free, than enslaved. Better to spend your days poor, loving what you do, than be caged by status and money.

I miss you, and promise to write soon.

All my love,
Onbeinggayandotherthings

Life in Pictures Thursday

Here is a little bit about me, so that we can get to know each other better.

Where to start? I recently had an existing tattoo added to. Here are some pictures to show you what the process was like:

K with three stars

Since we are on the topic of tattoos, here are some other pictures of me getting tattooed and of the other two tattoos which I have. The “Remember” tattoo on my right foot was the first ink I had done, in London. This tattoo is about the process of getting over obstacles and never forgetting what has happened to you, so that you can move forward. The second tattoo, which I call “The Book Thief” tattoo, is on my right shoulder-blade. It’s a drawing of Liesel, painting the words “The Endless Inbetween” on a wall (the wall is my back), and it comes from possibly my most cherished novel of all, “The Book Thief”, written by Markus Zusak. I hope to one day add a date beneath the line on which Liesel is standing – the date on which I have a novel published. Until then, this is all the endless inbetween.

Finalized tattoo!

Drawing for the Remember Tattoo

Here is a picture of me and le girlfriend (She’s on the right). Isn’t she lovely?

Izzy and I

Last night, we went to the cinema and saw “Warhorse”, and afterwards, she says to me that she would like to live on a farm, with horses and dogs and cats. Also, she would like me to cook barefoot. Who says that lesbians cannot be traditional?

So. That’s it for my life in pictures for today. I think I will try to make this a regular thing – Life in Pictures Thursday, or something of the other! xx Leani

Why The Face: Deterioration and Denial

It’s surprising to see how quickly things deteriorate – that’s what people always say, when things go wrong. When devastation comes a’calling, they claim that it happened “out of the blue”, as though there were no indicators at all. None whatsoever, oh no, we never see it coming.

It’s important to remember that I am making a broad, general argument. Of course a multitude of exceptions exist. Some things we cannot predict, and some situations turn sour suddenly, without any signals of the coming downturn. My argument, however, does not apply to freak accidents, but rather to the human’s inability to WANT to see the flashing warning signs. My own life is littered with examples of my clear dismissal of indicators of disaster. Take, for example, infidelity. No one knows better than me how easy it is to burrow your head in the sand and pretend that you don’t see what’s happening when your partner cheats on you. We deny the facts for a variety of reasons: we’re scared of conflict, scared to be alone, and scared to lose what we have. Relationships are like security blankets, and no one wants to give up the warmth and ease of a comfort zone; loneliness and awkwardness seems like a bad trade.

We’ve all been in the middle of a heated argument with a loved one, only to realize that we’re near to the tipping point. We watch the words flow forth past our flashing teeth, and we are all too aware of the damage they will do, and the lines they will cross, yet we knowingly still carry on. This happens to me quite often: I know when I am wrong, and I know when I have reached the point of absurdity, however pride and anger prevent me from surrendering. After all, no one wants to say: “Shit, I know I’ve been fighting with you for the past three hours, but actually I’m being completely irrational. Uh, sorry.”

Often I think humans push purposely; whether it be our insecurities that drive us to the point of lunacy, or a latent form of malice within us that leads us to test the limits of our fellow man and woman, for some reason we want to see how much of our bullshit the other party can take before they give up. Probably it is a survival instinct; a way of ensuring that we are surrounded by people who will go the distance, and a means by which to weed out the ones who won’t.

Here’s the thing, though: humans need to cut the crap, and open their eyes. And what’s more, we need to stop contemplating and analysing people and situations to the point where really, we’re just making things up. We think that we know how to connect the dots, identify the patterns and read people’s thoughts and actions, but actually, we have no idea.

What we are doing is stubbornly writing the plots of our lives while refusing to take into consideration that a) bad things happen, and evil people exist, and b) not everything can or will turn out the way we want it to. Furthermore, we have either been hurt too many times, or not enough, and thus we cling to every good thing or person that comes along as though they’re the Jack to our Rose, or Rose to our Jack (or Jack to our Jack and Rose to our Rose), dismissing the massive iceberg which is about to hit us. We often stay in things, or go into them, despite irrefutable knowledge that it’ll turn out bad.

As for incontrovertible knowledge, here’s some: not all people who enter your life are meant to be forever. Each has a role to play in the tale of your life. Knowing is better than not knowing; if absolute ignorance truly exists, then how do the ignorant know that it feels like bliss? Signs exist for a reason: to warn, or to direct you. You stop at a red light, don’t you? You don’t light up inside non-smoking buildings, do you? The same logic applies to indicators in life. Listen and take heed.

Lastly, (and this one’s the most important), you will meet hundreds, if not tens of thousands of people in your life. Some will be flung by fate onto the path of your existence, and others will be a permanent fixture. You can meet a thousand people who have no effect on you whatsoever, only to stumble onto the 1001th person, who will change you completely, irreversibly and eternally. The only certain truths of this life are that you are born, and that you will die, so in this part, the middle, make sure that it counts.

Live your life with your eyes wide open, so that you may swerve out of the way of an oncoming collision, and hopefully, also launch yourself into the arms of glorious, euphoric adventures. Trust me, there is nothing worse than being ignorant.

The Unicorn story and the Sex and Cigarettes story

I know I have been quiet, and I apologize most sincerely and deeply for this. I know I am busy, but why should you have to suffer? To make up for this, I have a little combo, two-for-the-price-of-one treat up my sleeve.

The first treat I am supplying as penance for my lack of blogs lately, has something to do with unicorns, a band called Two Door Cinema Club, and a company called 5Gum. It is a tiny piece in wrote which I had to incorporate the band name and the company name, and the prize offered was two tickets to see the band live. I won the tickets. Here’s the little tale:

Once upon a time, there lived two little unicorns in a Club called the Cinema, which had Two Doors. Now, this was some time after unicorns had gone to candy mountain, and so unicorns were scarce, and these were two of the last surviving unicorns left on the entire planet. The two little unicorns, living in a cinema club which was run-down and in the final stages of decay, had to live off old, left-behind, forgotten pieces of dry gym, manufactured by a company called 5Gum SA, as they were unable to acquire that which they really craved and needed in order to survive: music. A little known fact about unicorns is that the experience of listening to music helps their horns remain shiny, their manes become long and lustrous and their hearts grow full and abundant. Music, you see, was the key to unicorn survival. And so it happened that two little unicorns, the last two of their kind, were trapped inside a Two Door Cinema Club, fearful to exit their haven, and reduced to a life which consisted of eating dry bits of gum. And all the while, their last shining beacon of hope was that they would experience the life-giving qualities of music again. It was their fervent hope, their utmost prayer, and the only reason for their continued existence. But time, alas, was running out and soon the two unicorns would be down to their last bits of gum. Wither then, would hope come from?

The second treat is much more substantial. As you are aware of, I am attempting to write/finish a novel, called Sex and Cigarettes. Initially, the concept for the novel was quite simple (and predictable): Girl meets girl. Girl cheats on girl. Girl is devastated. Girl meets new girl. The end. Well, it wasn’t quite that bland, but you get the gist. I have, however, branched out a novel which was nearly-done, into something which I believe is much more interesting, and as an added bonus for me, challenging. The basic concept on which the novel is now founded, is that there exists many versions of you in the universe, and a change in even the smallest of circumstances has the ability to transform you into someone entirely different, personality wise (in other words, you have many alter egos). This means that Sex and Cigarettes now has three narrators, which are all essentially the same woman, yet they differ massively in economic, social, sexual, religious, geographical and other associated areas. But, before I give too much away, here is the brand new prologue for the novel:

Prologue

Imagine having an orgasm that’s so intense that it’s hard to breathe. Imagine your head tilting backwards, your eyes rolling closed, and your fingernails digging into the bedding. See in your mind’s eye yourself, lifting hips up into air, tumbling through pleasure and glory, higher and higher until you are balanced on the edge of insanity, throbbing with the need of release. The French call an orgasm “tiny death”, and this suits your romantically inclined nature perfectly. Afterwards, you roll onto your stomach and listen to the flutter of your heart inside your chest while you pull her closer. Her presence is enough to let you die a hundred tiny deaths, over and over. Strike up a cigarette and let your mind wander; you have always been a dreamer. Picture a house, a home. Picture walls of faint champagne. Picture a wall lined with photographs. Walk through the front door, past a white hallway. Walk past bedrooms cloaked in sunlight. Feel the heat of making love in a bed. See the bathroom, walk into a kitchen. Taste the scent of vegetables, feel the sizzle of olive oil on your skin. Wrap your arms around a beautiful blonde, hear the sigh of your lips as they alight on her cheek and her neck; a firefly perched upon the edge of the abyss. Spin her around, kiss her on the mouth, feel the passion fuse the moment into one endless stretch of time. Embrace the fact that for you, nothing will ever be as important as the need to be loved, and the ache to surround another with your undivided attention and adoration. For some, ambition, power and status are enough. For others, quiet nobility is the key to happiness. For you there are no greater heights than those you reach through incredible passion. You seek to hear, touch, feel, taste, and discover. Picture a life, all the insignificant little moments lined up from womb to death. Imagine the what if’s, the voyage not taken, the doors never opened. Imagine a story about a woman and the two women whom she loved, one in the before, and one in the after. Hear the breathless, still sound of surrender echoing like the final note on a piano. Notice the tightening of your stomach and the collision of fears bubbling beneath the surface. Feel the thickness of wood beneath your fingers and witness the footsteps of the departed. Catch the last threads of a solitary journey; listen to the ebb and flow of lonesomeness as it flits in the bare space. Picture a table with the main courses of your life heaped onto it. Savour your destiny, lick the sauce of your life from your lips. Celebrate.

Imagine an alternate you. That alter ego you always knew existed, but never allowed to come into being. There are a million versions of you that have existed in the expanse of the universe, and a million more which you are yet to become. Conjure up a version of you which never craved a life lived outside of the lines that society had drawn up. Imagine that the drive to exceed had never taken ahold of you, and the ability to disconnect came naturally to you. Search into the depths of your soul and discover that you are content with the plan that has been set out for you, that you do not hunker to reach higher ground, nor regret the cards that have been dealt to you. There is no shame in living a life which is entirely authentic, and shaped completely according to your wishes. Picture that man, the one you’ve always wanted – he is the father of your children, he barbecues on Sunday afternoons and remembers your wedding anniversary. He is all you ever dreamed of having. You live a life of security, and for a creature like you, that has always been enough. See the tiny seeds you will plant in your mind’s eye. Feel the throb of a fetus kicking at your ribs, and imagine the power you have in shaping another’s destiny; for a woman, there is no greater task than carrying the life of another so closely with you. Picture the thousands of first steps your child is yet to take, the mistakes to be made, and the journeys to be embarked upon. There is a stillness which comes from being a mother, and a recklessness in knowing that at any moment, life can be wretched from your clasps. One false move, one eye turned the other way for the briefest of seconds, and it might altogether vanish. Yet, light manifests in places which you may never have dared to dream of. Imagine, and dream it into reality.

Yet still, there are some of us who long for bright city lights, infinite oceans and passport stamps. Some wake restless in the night, the Brazilian skyline caught on the inside of their cheeks like a fresh snowflake. Feel the exquisite sway of palm trees waft over you, hear the electric drum of streets overflowing with pushing foreigners and performers. Open your hands and behold the magic of the world, clasped tightly between the frail veins of your palms, its enormity at your fingertips. Home is where your feet takes you, life pulses in the screech of airplane tires upon tarmac which you have never touched down on, and the currency by which you measure happiness, lies in the memories you make. There is no limit and there are no borders. You need no man nor woman to make you feel like you belong; the fabric of your existence is imprinted with chance encounters and the knowledge that nothing lasts forever. Picture the thousands of pictures you will take, and the hundreds of strangers you will converse with. There is only the present, the here and now, and the immediacy of being which vibrates within you. Close your eyes, my child, and pick the first place that your finger alights upon. Close your eyes, and explore. Life beats between the lines of children’s stories, in the adventures you are yet to take, and in the fold of your heart where you are the purest version of you that you could ever be. Life beats, and the world awaits your arrival.

The Science of Happiness

Happiness. It is a phantom thing, this emotion/destination/journey/place/person we call ” happiness”, and it’s most interesting characteristic I have come to find, is that I am never quite sure which shape it will take. I find it downright implausible that I cannot categorise it in a general kind of way – I can only define it according to my own needs and experiences and hopes. Unlike Aristotle, who said that happiness was the final end, the end to all ends, the nurturing of the soul which can only be achieved through acting virtuously (do we even know what virtue is, in this generation of ours?) and “faring well in life” (i.e fate – which is possibly as vague and fleeting a characteristic as happiness itself), I don’t know how to give happiness a definition.

Many of the definitions I have thought about, seem to be incredibly personal. Happiness is… having enough time to write this blog. Happiness is a pilates class. Happiness is the ability to wake up next to le girlfriend. Happiness is sleep; the fondest hello and the most difficult goodbye. Happiness is peanut butter. Happiness is a cigarette, feeling like I belong and matter, and writing. But here’s the rub: happiness seems to be something which you can only acquire by being selfish. This blog brings me happiness, possibly because I love writing it, and perhaps not because you love reading it. My kitten brings me joy because I like stroking her, hearing her purr, and looking at her cute little face. Is SHE happy? My girlfriend makes me happy, because she loves me and takes care of me and spends time with me. All those are selfish acts – I want. I need. I enjoy. And will I continue to enjoy the feeling of happiness I often experience in my life, even if I know that it is a selfish experience? Naturally. In the happiness equation, I will sacrifice many a thing in order to be ecstatic. Tattoos make me happy – unfortunately, they make my father very unhappy; in the grand scheme of life, you will always choose your own needs above those of others. Even having children is a selfish act – YOU want them. YOU want to be pregnant. YOU have a need and so you create a way for it to be fulfilled. It’s downright disturbing, isn’t it?

These revelations aside, it is still a good thing to be selfish (and happy). It is an instinct which we cannot escape, and therefore necessary (fortunately for us). This is your life, after all, and only your rules need apply to it. We have the remarkable ability to mold our own futures – barring fate, of course – and it is within your power to chase your needs, however selfish they may be. What may be upsetting to others, can be gorgeous to you, and as far as I’m concerned, that will always be a good thing (unless you’re a pervert or a murderer. Exceptions will always exist). I haven’t ceased being gay, getting ink, or writing things which many, many people do not agree with, so neither should you. Write poetry, make love, run a marathon, have children, buy pets and live your life – you only get this one.

The Adventures of the Mole-People

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, called Moleville, there lived a colony of Mole-People. This is their story.

Moleville, for those of you who don’t know, is shaped exactly like a foot. And it is on this foot, with it’s gorgeous molten yellow sunshine summers and it’s harsh, idyllic snow-filled winters, that the Mole-People first came into existence. The Mole-People lived in Moleville for thousands of years, until That Day happened, and Father Mole was the eldest of his people. He had been the first mole to move from his human’s body to Moleville. Mind you, he was quite a scoundrel in his youth; he was forcibly removed from his host’s body by being burnt off, and wandered the world, searching for a place where he could live. At first, he thought Buenos Aires would be the ideal place to live, but he was chased away by the King of Sock Kingdom, where the runaway socks had founded their home. Next, Father Mole, or Marvin as he was known back then, moved on to South Africa, but there he was confronted by a slew of what looked like apes wielding sticks, hunting for food, but later realized were primitive people, and, fearing for his life, he quickly travelled on. In France, he witnessed Marie Antoinette, dressed beautifully in her dresses, which to him seemed to be spun from pure gold, woven with stars and held together by the sun. But, alas, a revolution was underfoot in France, and in the quietness of the night, with the moon his only companion, Father Mole fled France. He encountered many more countries and different cultures, but after a very long search, he finally came upon Moleville.

He reached the near-deserted stretch of land on a windy and warm morning in July. He was tired and hungry, and ached for a Molenut (round, deep-fried dough covered in delicious chocolate, referred to by humans as “doughnuts”) or at the very least a bite of Chomolete (bars of cocoa filled with tasty treats like nuts or mints, called “chocolate” by humans). However, since Mole-People had always gotten their food from the scraps which fell onto humans while they ate their food, Father Mole had not eaten for a very long time. As he walked into the place which later became Moleville, Father Mole was struck by how beautiful it was. “How pretty”, he said to himself, leaning on his stick as he gazed at a tree, larger than anything he had ever seen, hanging heavy with pearls. “What ever could that be!”, he exclaimed, as he walked further on and saw a river, with white horses with a horn on each of their heads, frolicking it the water. As he drew nearer, he saw that there were rainbows and floating cups of candy and strawberry valley’s surrounding the playful horses. Not in all his travels had he ever seen such happy creatures, and so he lurked closer and closer. Seeing as Mole-People are very tiny (just look at your arm, and you’ll see the tiny moles living there, unable to leave your body because of That Day), the happy horses never saw Father Mole. It was not until he stood right at the edge of the water that one of the horses raised his head into the air and started smelling.

“Curious”, he neighed to one of his friends. “What’s that you say, Charlie?”, said the friend.
“I smell something peculiar”, said Charlie, pawing the riverbank with his hoof.

Meanwhile, Father Mole was standing between the two strange looking horses, tugging on the one called Charlie’s hoof. “Helloooooo!”, he screamed, but no one responded.
“Hey you!”, he screamed, but he was too tiny to be heard.
Eventually Father Mole, rather angry now because he was being ignored, started to climb on to Charlie. Inch by inch he hauled himself up and through the beautiful horse’s hair until finally he came to rest on his nose. At this, Charlie began to shake his head.

“Look, there’s something on my nose!”, he proclaimed to his friend.
“What is it?”, his friend quietly whispered.
“My name is Marvin”, said Father Mole.
“What? How can it be? It speaks!” yelled Charlie, rather anxious now.
“Of course I can speak”, said Father Mole, looking into the eyes of the horses. “May I ask, what kind of a creature are you?”
Charlie puffed himself up, his mane growing whiter and more beautiful, and peered at Father Mole with one blue eye. “We are Unicorns, of course. And what are you?”
“Unicorns”, Father Mole mumbled to himself. “How peculiar. I am a Mole-Person.”
Charlie’s face began to frown. “And what exactly is a Mole-Person?”
“Have you never heard of us? But how can that be? A Mole-Person, I’ll have you know, lives on a human, growing there until it is old enough to live on it’s own.”, he said, feeling rather indignant that they had never heard of Mole-People before.
“Well”, neighed Charlie, “welcome to our home. Are you visiting us on business or pleasure?”
“I have come to live here!”, exclaimed Father Mole.
Charlie and his friend laughed. “But this is OUR home. You don’t belong here.”
At these words, Father Mole grew very angry, and became rather red. “I shall live here if I want to, and you cannot stop me!”
Charlie carefully lifted his paw and flicked Father Mole lightly on the head, so that his bowler hat now sat scew on his forehead. “I’m a lot bigger than you”, said Charlie.
“And I”, said Father Mole, “am a lot smaller than you.”
Charlie and his friend looked at each other and shook their heads. Whatever would they do with this imposter?

- to be continued in Part II -

Dream a Little Dream with Me

So, have you all been waiting in anticipation for a blog from me? I have kept you waiting, haven’t I, with my thirteen days of silence. Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but I have. I have been struggling with something, which is why I haven’t posted anything; when I get happy, writer’s block sets in.

So here I sit, smoking my cherry-flavoured tobacco, drinking my dry lemon concoction, attempting to survive in the heatwave Cape Town has chosen to punish us with, as I wonder what to write about. I am not sure if you agree, but the lesbian-related topics are old news by now. Shattered-heart threads of thought? Pffft. You’re over it, I’m over it. Where to go from here, is the question I have been pondering. How do I diversify my writing? And more importantly, in your case – how do I keep you coming back for more?

As part of my resolutions for this year, I have set a goal for this blog: to pump it up, to kick it into a higher gear, and to post about things other than: girl meets girl. Girl breaks heart. First girl weeps. Cue alcohol abuse and bad decision making. End with loss of self and search for dignity. I suppose I always choose that topic because I’m familiar with it, and because we all experience that feeling at some point or another. We all struggle with love, wretched thing that either etches beauty onto our lives or leaves us wrecked in its wake.

So. Let’s diversify. I have always been told by people in positions of authority and those close to me (teachers, lecturers, parents, mentors, lovers and friends), that I am destined for greatness. They use the word “extraordinary” to describe what they believe I have the ability to achieve. No pressure, right? With the draping of this heavy banner over my shoulders has always come a feeling of inferiority. How I am supposed to become extraordinary? I feel ordinary. I feel mundane. I feel a lot like Harry Potter, as a matter of a fact. I do not have any tools at my disposal to live up to these expectations: I only have luck.

This year, I am starting to feel different. Perhaps it is the sweltering 9th circle of hell heat, or maybe a change has occurred that I am unaware of, but I predict that this is the year in which it will all fall into place. This is the year that I will become, maybe, if I am lucky, extraordinary. This year I will try to live up to these expectations that you have placed onto me. Maybe I’ll publish my novel, who knows, miracles do happen. Or maybe I will keep my relationship at a good place. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of drama. Let’s leave the heartbreak for the fools – it is time to be a grown up. Whatever this year may hold, I feel the coming of a storm. I feel a little bit of magic lingering in the seams of my heart, and I will be honest: it scares the fuck out of me. I’ve been having nightmares for the past two weeks, nightmares that when I get called up to bat, I’ll hit and miss. However, fear is a thing I’m used to. It is the great divider and with its eye upon me, I know that these crazy-ass dreams of mine are worth it. Why aim for anything less? Why not face fear and taunt it?

If you’re sitting in a corner, shaking like a coward, while you mumble your dreams to yourself, then I dare you. Why not leap with me? Why not embrace the generation you live in? We are the dreamers, the makebelievers and the philosophers. Where those before us have lived their lives in the lines drawn for them, we say: fuck the lines. Fuck the system. We say: excuse us while we chase our wants. Why live a life in the shadow of who you could be, when you can soar? I dare you to dream, I dare you to move. I dare you, to be great.