92.6

ninety two point six

As in kilograms...

As in the mass of my body...

As in when the fuck did that happen?

Okay the last question is unnecessary. I know when and I know how, but still... why did I let it get to this point? Never mind the aesthetics, that is not healthy. But then again I probably haven't been healthy for the last 7ish years or so bar for a few sporadic episodes here and there. At 1.64 metres tall my healthy weight is somewhere between 60 and 64 kgs and I can't remember when last I weighed anywhere near those amounts.

So let me state the obvious here, but I think it is important. I know that this was a choice, MY choice, every bite of food, every time I ignored the fact that I was full and kept eating anyway, every time I didn't exercise, every time I turned away from the mirror instead of facing the truth - all of those moments stemmed from a choice that I made not to put my health first, I am accountable and it stands to reason that the path back to health will be paved by my choices too (better ones of course).

The thing is that I didn't wake up one day with a figurative light bulb above my head saying "I know, let's get fat and be unfit and unhealthy"* I know I wouldn't have done that because despite my current deep neglect of myself and my appearance I am surprisingly self-centred and vain. I didn't CHOOSE to be fat. Well... not directly anyway. I chose convenience, I chose taste, I chose comfort, I chose lots and lots of comfort. 

*I realise that fat does not necessarily equal unfit and/or unhealthy, but in my case it certainly does.

And so here I am, looking down indignantly at the numbers on the scale, wondering how it is that I got here - even though I know exactly how.

My first thought is to berate and belittle myself and a few months ago if I had had the strength to face the scale that is precisely what I would have done, but now after months and months and months of therapy I can't seem to talk to myself that way anymore. I got upset, yes, but I didn't treat myself badly because of it, I wallowed in the state of realising where I was and then once I was ready to start to let go of the self pity I started to consider what I would need to do to fix it. That was uncomfortable because as simple as it sounds "yes just fix it" it isn't anywhere near as simple as I would like it to be, I found this out while wading through thick sticky denial and self-indulgent retorts of "but I don't want to" which sounded a whole lot like my 6 year old when she gets told to tidy up. It isn't a whole lot of fun and laughs now is it?

I have pretty good reason not to want to fix it though. My track record of "fixing it" involves a mosaic of strict dieting, restrictive eating, excessive exercise, hunger, bulimia, fasting, diet pills and laxatives (all used in various different combinations at different times). All of my tried and tested methods thus far are not kind, in fact they have all been downright destructive and I am sure must have resulted in some metabolic damage somewhere. In an essence my self-esteem is shot. I wish it was possible to grab that teenage girl paging through the magazines earmarking the pages flaunting the models with the bodies she wishes to have and tell her that she is already perfect and beautiful. She never needed to change herself to be lovable. She didn't know that though.

The difference I have at this point in my life is that I know that I don't need to change so that I can be loved. I am already loved and lovable just the way I am. I want to change because I am physically tired and unfit and unhealthy and feeling this way is just no way to live and enjoy life. Now I just need to find a way to do it that doesn't involve destroying myself and that is going to require a great deal of my energy and awareness. I do think that it will be worth it though.

Life or something like it

I don't feel like I have lived.

Up until this point I have merely survived with some short random bursts of doing things that really set my soul on fire. The fire fizzles fast though and the older I get the more I find myself questioning exactly what it is in this life that makes my heart beat faster and how do I get more of it?

The reality is, no matter how much I want to, I can't just drop everything and travel the world. Well I suppose I could I guess, but I would have a tough time finding the money and then explaining why my 6 year old child is not being educated. I have a certain level of responsibility that I need to account for and it seems that is what being an adult is all about. So how do we strike that balance of meeting responsibilities and also nourishing the soul?

One of my clients committed suicide this past Friday. Three acquaintances have lost their dads in the space of 6 months. I lost my dad. I don't need to see any more evidence... life is finite, it is unpredictable and no matter what, just as everything begins so everything ends. It is a cataclysmic thought to even begin to comprehend never mind accept. One of the greatest fears in my life, and only a short second behind losing the people that I love, I am utterly terrified that I die in a car accident or some other unfortunate event on my way home from work because I just could not handle the thought of the last few hours of my life having being spent at work. At the same time I have started to accept that I am not likely to find my sole driving purpose and then also fortuitously find that aligns with my work and means of earning an income. Don't get me wrong, if it does I will welcome it with open arms and back flips, but if we're honest here it just doesn't work that way for everybody so my aim is to make my life outside of work as amazing and authentic as possible.

For that to happen I need to do a few things:

a) I need to be as healthy as I possibly can be so I can enjoy life;

b) I need to nurture my relationships;

c) I need to look at life with a sense of wonder; and

d) most importantly I need to figure out what makes me excited

I am getting on nicely with points b and c for now. Points a and d need some work. The only thing I know for sure is that I want to travel but seriously there has to be more than that so I am just going to keep on soul searching.

On that note I have resigned and I took the job offer. It took every ounce of courage that I could muster up inside of me to resign but I did it and it didn't go too badly. I start my new job on the 1st of August (also Layla's 7th birthday) and I am so looking forward to the new challenge as well as having more flexible time. I am so grateful for this opportunity.

I am in an exceptional place right now, I haven't been this happy in a long time and I am soaking up every moment. I feel like I have stopped just surviving and I am finally starting to live. 

Only took me 34 year...

Making a tough decision

I am no stranger to stress. I don't think anyone is really. I used to think that I handled stress well, even that I thrived on stress. Turns out that I don't, not on prolonged stress anyway. 2017 has been a particularly stressful year for me so far, however with the exception of my dad's death (for obvious reasons) everything has come with a positive outcome - it is the process of getting to the outcome which has proven to be stressful. Now that we have bought a house and are working our way through the somewhat stressful and financially straining part of the transfer, I thought that everything could finally start to settle down. 

Ummm, as it turns out, not really because out of nowhere I got offered a new job. 

I am reasonably comfortable where I work now, I mean I have been here over 11 years now.  I know the work, the people, the traffic and it is all so very comfortable. Boring at times, but super comfortable.

I have had passing thoughts about moving on, but the kind of thoughts that I pushed away with a not right now, it isn't a good time. When is it a good time though? Not only have I worked here for 11 years, but it is in a small office environment of only 3 people and that is with myself included! I am having an extremely tough time not worrying about disappointing my boss by deciding to leave. I absolutely hate being the cause of people's upset and letting them down, to the point where I deny myself happiness in order to not let it get in the way of someone else's happiness. And it hurts me.

I didn't actively go out looking for new work. It came to me. It is nothing like what I am doing now, but I find that somewhat intriguing and exciting, it has been quite some time since I have needed to step out of my work comfort zone. I kinda like the idea of leaving behind what I am doing now. This new job is so (SO) much closer to home, which brings about it's greatest perk, more time! Less time in traffic and more time with my kid. I hadn't realised what a big deal something like that could be until I found it my founding argument for possibly taking this new job.

Have I made a decision? I think I have and it is not what I thought it would be. I thought I was going to stay, but I find myself daydreaming about the day I leave. It has been one of the most difficult decisions I have ever had to make. I am afraid of the change, but I think that is normal. However the strongest emotion seems to be guilt, I am so guilty about leaving the job I have now, even though I am 99% sure that this move will be best for me and my family, I somehow just can't shake the guilt about letting someone down. Will this matter in 5 years time though? I hope not.

Until now I hadn't realised how hungry I was for change, for a fresh start. I still need to commit to the decision though, so let's see how this works out.

The things a year can do

One year. 

This isn't the good kind of anniversary. My anxiety levels have been rising more and more in the days leading up to today.

One year ago since my dad's accident and today has hit me harder than I thought it would, but then again why shouldn't it, everything changed after this day.

I hate when I find myself imagining what this day must have been like for him. To have been hurt, unable to move and all alone lying in the grass knowing that it is entirely possible that no one would find you. I wonder if he thought he was going to die there alone. I wonder if he tried to shout for help. My heart breaks when I think these thoughts. I need to push them out of my head so that I don't break down. I hope that he didn't lie there all alone for too long.

Mercifully he didn't remember anything about the accident.

I am eternally grateful to the man who stopped to inspect the 'abandoned' bike just visible from the road. Thankful that when he felt that the engine was warm that he looked for the biker. He could have just walked away. I didn't think to thank him last year, but I wish I could find him and thank him now.

I am grateful to the paramedics that came so quickly from the mines to help him, for them taking us back to the scene of the accident to explain what they had found and for phoning in the immediate days after the accident to see how he was doing.

If we had known this time last year what life had for in store for us I don't think we would have believed it.

The things a year can do,

How I have changed in the past year

I have been struggling with blog topics lately. I feel like this blog space has become about my dad's death and as such it is now sacred, so I am having trouble talking about general more random topics. However this space was always intended to be about my life and my self-realisation (and apparently self-indulgence) and I would like to try and find that purpose again.

Serendipitously I came across a pin on pinterest titled Memory Keeping: 52 Journal Questions (by www.hayleyfromhome.co.uk) and I felt like it was a good nudge in the right direction. Today I have decided to write about how the last year has changed me which is poignant considering that this time last year I was so very blissfully unaware of what was about to unfold in my life.

"She's changed. You can see it in her eyes, feel it in her touch, and hear it in her tone. She's not the same, and she's never coming back." - K. Azizian

Reflecting on this time last year, while I would never really describe myself as a care-free person, it was probably my last few days of being 'care-free'. We had just returned from our first family holiday with just the 3 of us. Ironically* enough this holiday was in Nelspruit and I had never been there before. It was so beautiful.

*It is ironic in that is where my dad was initially hospitalised and I ended up going to Nelspruit 4 times during the month of May 2016.

I still lived in the world of those things don't happen to me. How wonderfully naive. I wish I could blink back to this place of unfaltering security every now and then.

Then it happened. In one split second everything changed. I changed. 17 May 2016.

In the past year our family has been held over the fire. Melted and remoulded into something... different. I can't help but feel a little bit broken, but paradoxically at the same time closer to being more whole.

I am not so naive anymore. I know that there is a place between life and death, a place of mere existence and just plain survival. I know that stories don't always just either end abruptly or if they don't then obviously end happily. I realised that you can take 8 months to die from an accident. I know that one seemingly minor decision, one tiny bad judgement can change everything. I have found out how lies can bring you to your knees.

I can confidently say that I have cried every single day since 17 May last year until today. Sometimes it is just a few sad tears, sometimes it's sobs and for the first time in my life sometimes they are happy tears (spoiler: we got the house).

Since I now know that everything ends and nothing is guaranteed I have started to see beauty in every tiny little thing. I am seizing opportunities as they pass without over thinking it too much (okay sometimes, it is a difficult habit to break) which would be why in the 4 months since my dad passed I have bought a house, a car and signed my daughter up for ice skating lessons, something I always wanted to do as a child (it was her choice though, I am not going to try and live through her). Time is finite!

I seem to be living in opposites land. Never have I been more afraid, yet more brave. I feel both weaker and stronger at the same time. I have never been sadder nor happier in my whole entire life. It feels all so wrong and yet also so right.

I am learning the value in being vulnerable.

My marriage was well and truly tested in this past year, but we made it through and I am happier than ever with where our relationship is even though I am human and I still deal with massive insecurity. Although I feel like I am better able to express it now.

This year has been a true rollercoaster.

Here are some of the things that have happened in the space of 12 months:

• I dealt with my first ever real crisis; dad's accident and severe disabilities as a result.
• I experienced the ICU for the first time (and then over and over and over)
• I failed my first ever exam and it was a biggie, the board exam (I still need to rewrite).
• I travelled by myself for the first time. 
• I built a relationship with my sister.
• I found out that I am never going to have that second baby that I wanted so bad.
• I paid off my debt.
• I co-signed papers to withdraw my dad's treatment once he went into a coma.
• I started therapy (as a result of the trauma of the above point).
• I learnt to believe in miracles.
• I then learnt that not every miracle is about healing forever, sometimes it is about a couple of extra months. Still a miracle.
• I nearly destroyed my marriage (but I didn't thankfully).
• I learnt to love people who didn't deserve it and love when it wasn't something I wanted to do. Love is healing.
• My daughter started Grade 1.
• I lost my dad.
• In losing my dad I 'found' a family.
• I gave away a car.
• I stood up for myself.
• I bought a new car.
• I bought a house.

It has been a traumatic year, but I have learnt so much that I couldn't possibly want to change it for anything else. Although if I could have my dad back I obviously would, but that is not how life goes is it?

Most importantly, I survived.

Life is precious.

Random Thoughts

A few months ago we decided to tentatively start house hunting. The point was less about buying and more about seeing what we could get in our area for our budget while starting to save up for a deposit. We do own a unit in a complex but we would prefer not to buy on the condition of a sale, that is just too much pressure and I don't deal well with pressure. 

It wasn't a very exciting search I'll admit and I even said we will stop looking after the fourth house since we aren't desperate to move, but then of course there was this one house (isn't there always?) I had seen the pictures before and disregarded it, I don't know why? Possibly because it is hovering neatly on the border between affording it and well... not. However the more I looked at the pictures the more I thought that it was a pretty nice house considering what we had been seeing and even though I wasn't (and am still not) entirely convinced on the affordability aspect I made an appointment to go and see it. 

Naturally, because we maybe can't afford it, we fell in love with this particular arrangement of brick and plaster. It ticked all of the boxes. Cue me doing some very creative budgeting and number crunching and we since we had become distinctly aware that this house is a BARGAIN we decided to throw all caution to the wind and put in an offer. We did this yesterday, yes on a Sunday afternoon, estate agents don't seem to care about their own personal down time. After signing the offer and discussing it with the estate agent I am even less confident about getting financing now, but sometimes you really do just need to take the chance. 

We aren't really ready you know, we don't have an immediately accessible deposit, so it is either a 100% bond or we would have to sell our unit first to get that and that takes time. But sometimes, just sometimes, you need to stop thinking and just jump. I truly cannot believe that my overly cautious husband was willing to take that leap with me.  I do it all the time, I love taking chances to see if the universe thinks I should or shouldn't have something, but Stephen, he doesn't buy so much as a lamp without a carefully crafted and double checked blueprint.

And you know what, if it doesn't work out, even though we will be disappointed, it won't be the biggest train smash. We just continue as is and prepare ourselves better to try again in a year's time. We have promised ourselves not to get too invested in the idea. I have stopped believing in failure. Either it works out or you learn a lesson. If this is supposed to be our house then it will be our house. If not, there is something else waiting.

In amongst trying to buy things we can't afford, our family has been plagued with a few medical issues which is actually quite unusual for us. Stephen and Layla have had dental problems that have needed urgent sorting out... a few times now. And me, well yes. I had reflux which I thought was a heart attack and ended up in the emergency room from 2am to 4am on a drip one night last week #hypochondria. Then yesterday I was bitten by something and it just looked like a simple mozzie bite at first however it is now the size of a tennis ball, swollen, hot and developing some tiny fluid filled blisters in the centre. It is itchy and sore and I am feeling a bit woozy now which I am sure is just my hypochondria kicking in again. I started off by determining if it was getting bigger by plotting it between some of my freckles but I have quite a few freckles and can't remember the original border, so I have resorted to drawing a line around it so see if it gets any bigger over the day. Fun times!

Yesterday we went for a boat ride on the Vaal River and I was blown away with how picturesque it was with the river being flanked by so many trees showing off their gorgeous autumn leaves. From yellow to gold to red and pink, it truly was a sight to behold. Nature is amazing. 

Other than that it is our second wedding anniversary tomorrow and I cannot believe how quickly two years can fly by. Suppose we should maybe try to do something to celebrate. Let's see how it goes.

A look at grief 3 months on (a personal perspective)

At times I can't believe that it has already been 3 months and in the same breath it feels like it was a lifetime ago. Some days it feels like it happened to someone else and some days the finality of it consumes me.

I hate that time keeps on moving forward. I feel like the further we move from the date of his death the more I lose of him. The more my grasp of him slips. I don't want it to ever be years since he left but I know that there is nothing that I can do to stop that. I really don't like that idea at all.

Two weeks ago we got his autopsy report and it was a difficult but disconnected read. How was it that it is my dad's name on such a report, the one talking about internal organs and incisions? What this report did bring was a small sense of peace though, my dad was in a very bad way and the decision to not resuscitate was the right one. His lungs were by far the worst, respirator lungs was the term, but his brain, heart, liver and kidneys had also all experienced a level of tissue damage in one way or the other. That is every vital organ. He also had some pretty serious pressure sores which had become infected. Cause of death was cited a quadriplegia and complications thereof, primarily being bronchopnuemonia. There were abscesses in his lungs. I don't know how he managed to survive as long as he did.

All of that - from a motorcycle accident. Eight months of agony, physical and mental, all from a split second of bad judgement. A mistake. It is terrifying to contemplate.

So here we are, 3 months on, and there has been some closure from the perspective of his physical condition and why we are where we are now. Emotionally the road is somewhat rocky still although substantially smoother than where we have been. I still cry almost daily, and it is almost always while in the car - the only time that I am by myself during the day. The tears are different all of the time, sometimes sad, sometimes nostalgic, sometimes angry or afraid and sometimes in disbelief, but they are always healing and the crying comes in much shorter bouts now. It is quiet crying.

Once a month however I do get overwhelmed and anxious and just utterly heartbroken and when I try to figure out why it is hitting me so hard at that particular time I come to realise that it the day before the monthly anniversary of his death. Every time without fail. I don't try and stuff it down though, I feel it fully as sucky as it is. Somehow by taking ownership of the feelings it seems to stop them from overpowering me.

One particular aspect that I have struggled with is my memories of him. Every time I think about him it is a time that he was in the hospital, only post accident memories, and I was starting to get concerned that I was only going to remember him that way, helpless and dependent. Then I went back to our whatsapp group, the one where we kept each other updated visit by visit and discussed all of his issues at whichever point in time and I read everything and listened to every voice note all over from beginning to end. It took almost 3 hours. I was shocked by how much I had forgotten, or gotten wrong from a timeline point of view in this blog. There were far more ups and downs than I had ever remembered. There was one voice note from November that I had eliminated from my memory, didn't even know it existed, until I pressed play. My heart caught in my throat as I heard my dad's trach voice (a rare occurrence, I had forgotten he was well enough in November to have his trach cuff deflated at times to talk) address my sister and I. The tears came immediately because it felt like he never left or like I was hearing a message from the grave. The end of the message is priceless though - I love you, bye... I have listened to it often since I found it.

Despite all of the above and also feeling like people seem to think that we should all be over his death already (which I try not to let upset me but I do get annoyed at times), I actually feel much stronger emotionally. I am starting to have more and more spontaneous memories of him from before the accident which hurt at first for all the things that they will never be again, but I have started to find myself smiling at some of the memories as well. Something I thought was never going to happen.

There is so much more that happened during this entire 8 month process prior to his death that I haven't mentioned in this blog because they are so personal and so devastating that it isn't fair to any of our family members to bring it up on such an open and public platform. I have done a load of therapy work on it and I am amazed by my own, and others, capacity for forgiveness. It overwhelms me. I thankfully don't have much experience with grief, but the little that I have gathered over the past 3 months has certainly changed me in a way and helped me to grow as a human being. Probably more so than I have done in my entire life before this.

I have realised the fragility of life. There really are no promises.

And I don't ever want to take this life for granted again.