You’re Back…I’m not Snow White

You’re back, and you announce it to me via text or email or Facebook message or skywriting or carrier pigeon. “Hey,” you write. “I’m back.”

Oh. How nice. How nice for you. I…I don’t know how I’m supposed to react.

Did you think that when you left, I froze? That time stood still and I just stayed exactly the same in exactly the place you left me? Did you think I wasn’t upset, wasn’t moved, wasn’t changed by your leaving and the way you left? Did you think I just went, “Oh, okay. I’ll wait here” and plopped down and twiddled my thumbs and waited for you to return?

I am different than when you took off. I was alone and I was sad and I picked myself up, dusted myself off and kept on. Well, what was I supposed to do? Go to sleep? Hibernate? Go into a coma? Die? Was I supposed to die? And then rest in a coffin in the forest and wait for you to come back and kiss me and wake me up? Am I Snow White?

At first, I waited for you. Maybe intentionally.  Maybe just because I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. I convinced myself that you were coming back and it was me you were coming back for. I convinced myself I could hold out, and that if I just remained pristine and perfect, I’d be preserved for when you returned. But then, time went by and I moved on. You have no right to come back and expect me to just drop everything like we were a book you get to just put a bookmark in and return to whenever it’s convenient for you.

There is no bookmark. My story continued without you.

Is this a TV show? Did they just want to stir up my storyline for sweeps or a season finale? You used to be a series regular and then you thought maybe you could do movies or something so the writers wrote you out of the show. Then, a season later, your movie career failed and you asked to be written back in and so the writers shoe-horned a reason for you to just show up at the coffee shop and voila! You’re back!

But here’s the rub: you missed a whole season. Maybe I was given a new love interest or maybe I went through some trying “Very Special Episodes” but either way, I am not the same. You can’t just expect me to be the same.

I’m not even mad at you. I’m sorry if it seems like I’m mad. I’m just frustrated by all this. A big part of me wants to run into your arms and never let go. A big part of me wants to resume everything as normal. A big part of me wants to believe you’ll never leave again. Will you ask me to wait for you this time? I want you too, but I’m also scared.

You were like an imprint in a car seat or a divot in the sand. I knew you’d been there, because you left a mark, but then you made a choice and you were gone. It really, really hurt.

You’re back, you tell me. And you want a response, a reaction, something, but I feel too many emotions at once to figure it out. Can I both slap you and kiss you? Confuse you the way you confused me?

I’m sure we’ve both changed. I bet you’re also unsure and tentative. You have so much you want to tell me, so much to share. Where do you even begin? Where should I even begin?

But it’s halfway through the next season and even the writers can’t salvage this one and I don’t want them to. Let me enjoy my happy ending this time.

I’m not Snow White…

 

Advertisement

Attention Vaalies ‘The Beach’ has arrived in Jozi

 

Play Braamfontein has brought the beach to Jozi! Situated across from the Neighbourgoods market The Beach is open from 11am to 4pm and has a cover charge of R150…cheaper than a flight to Cape Town…it also gets you a bunch of beer sponsored by those guys who make the salad dressing dispensers Grolsch.  I’m going tomorrow and I cant wait!

Check out their Facebook page: The Beach

Heather…marry me?

A good family friend of mine is the most amazing photographer…sadly she is based in New Zealand but I have promised myself that I have to have her at my wedding! Check out these amazing pictures on Facebook and if you happen to be based in the land of sheep track her down and prepare to be astounded! You can also read her blog here.

 

This is my all time favorite picture:

 

And I said: what, why? Why do you need to know? What does it matter?

We’ve grown up being told we need a reason for everything, that there’s a meaning behind every single thing and if only you figure out what it is, you’ll succeed, you’ll have made it. Wake up, make your bed, get out, be nice, work hard, eat well, be nicer, work harder, read good books, say your prayers, go to sleep, have peaceful dreams. Repeat.

But it’s not for us, darling, it never was. I don’t believe in a higher meaning, nor do I need a purpose to live for. I believe in us, in life, in the magical reality of everything around us. Look at it, then look again, look harder because I can’t make you see until you want to. 
This is it. This is all there is to it, and it’s wonderful enough as it is. I don’t believe in god or praying. In don’t believe in heaven or hell. There’s no afterlife I’m hoping for, no deadline I’m dreading. I don’t need to know what we’re put on earth for – I don’t believe we were put on earth to begin with. We became and here we are.

Insignificant to the universe, we could easily not have been here and all would still be as it is. But we’re here now and for that we’re infinitely blessed. You get to feel the cherry blossoms in your hands. Swim in cold water while the sun rises and warms your shoulders. Make love and cry because you’re sad or cry because you’re happy and never have to explain, because the tears stain all the same. You get to grow and dance and drink and see the world in every place you travel to. See birthmarks on your skin develop into patterns that mirror constellations if only you’d look long enough. I’ve got Orion on my thigh and your back’s just one mark short of Cassiopeia.

If you take us all apart, you’d find we’re all made of stardust – as are the trees, the frogs, the grass as well as the dew on it – why would we be any more special? I’ve never seen a tree stop mid-sway to contemplate why it’s moving and if it’ll ever get any closer. It sways and sways and sways and pretends it makes the same wind blow that it is rocking to.

We hold remnants of long lost stars in our veins. That’s not an answer, but it’s still magnificent and nothing can ever be both pointless and magnificent.

From the thought catalog

Not so – perfectly lonely

Had a little love but I spread it thin
Falling in his arms and out again
Made a bad name for my game round town
Tore out my heart and shut it down

Nothing to do, nowhere to be
A simple little a kind of free
Nothing to do, no one but me
That’s is all I need

I’m perfectly lonely
I’m perfectly lonely
I’m perfectly lonely, yeah
Cause I don’t belong to anyone
Nobody belongs to me

I see my friends around from time to time
When their men let em slip away
And when they ask me how I’m doing with mine
This is always what I say …

Nothing to do, nowhere to be
A simple little kind of free
Nothing to do, no one to be
Is it really hard to see?

I’m perfectly lonely
I’m perfectly lonely
I’m perfectly lonely,
Cause I don’t belong to anyone
Nobody belongs to me

And this is not to say
There never comes a day
I’ll take my chances and start again
And when I look behind
On all my younger times
I’ll have to thank the wrongs
That led me to a love so strong

I’m perfectly lonely
I’m perfectly lonely
I’m perfectly lonely,
Cause I don’t belong to anyone
And nobody belongs —

That’s the way, that’s the way
That’s the way that I want it
That’s the way, that’s the way
That’s the way that I want it
That’s the way, that’s the way
That’s the way that I want it
That’s the way, that’s the way
That’s the way that I want it

Just keep telling myself that