Just Be…

I was going to attempt my hand at writing a poem, but I’ve never really been any good at it. So I will write about what is on my mind instead.

I have been catching up on glee the past couple days. I only ever watched the first season and the first episode of the second season. For whatever reason, I just didn’t carry on. It sounds so trivial. Watching glee. The thing is however when you really pay attention to what is being said and how people react to situations, you are able to learn. Not only about how people interact, but also about yourself and how we understand our interactions with others.

If you watch glee, you’ll understand what I’m getting at. The one scene for example, where Brittany and Ardie break up can be seen from different viewpoints. I spoke to a friend about it and the only thing that she remembered about the scene is that Artie called her stupid. I’m not negating what he called her. But what he said before that was quite profound:

“… That there’s one other person in your life that can provide for you things that I’m supposed to provide, it’s just too much for me to take…”

Relationships and friendships aren’t meant to be complete and infinite. But the person you are sharing parts of your life with should make you feel complete and whole. A relationship should be a place where things are shared in an environment of love and warmth without judgment or fear of not being what you are supposed to be. A place where you can ‘just be’…. 

Wow… Almost at 100 posts... Better make the next couple good ones…

Not As We ~ Alanis Morissette

Reborn and shivering
Spat out on new terrain

Unsure unconvincing
This faint and shaky hour

Day one day one start over again
Step one step one
I'm barely making sense for now
I'm faking it 'til I'm pseudo making it
From scratch begin again but this time I as I
And not as we

Gun shy and quivering
Timid without a hand

Feign brave with steel intent
Little and hardly here

Day one day one start o-over again
Step one step one
With not much making sense just yet
I'm faking it til I'm pseudo making it
From scratch begin again but this time I as I
And not as we

Eyes wet toward
Wide open frayed
If God's taking bets
I pray He wants to lose

Day one day one start over again
Step one step one
I'm barely making sense just yet
I'm faking it til I'm pseudo making it
From scratch begin again but this time I as I
And not as we

What a weekend...

I really don't often have amazing weekends from beginning to end... Well not in the last 7 months anyway. The course I'm doing (which hopefully this time next week will be done with) pretty much takes up my life and my weekends. I do however try and have some me time, friend time and relationship time over weekends (mostly relationship time...).

This past weekend was pretty awesome though. Yes I did have to finish off a couple assignments (which are thankfully done), but the rest of it I got to spend with awesome people doing awesome things.

Saturday, was diet cheat day. Which I have decided isn't worth actually eating like a pig on crap food for 16 hours straight... I ate so much 'good' processed food its not even funny haha! I think however the processed part needs to stop (apart from chocolate though). Saturday also included pride, which was interesting... I've never been a fan of gay parades as you probably have noticed from a previous post this time last year, but it is interesting to so to what extremes people will go to show the world 'what they really are'???

Sunday was the Nike RunJozi 10km race, which I have to be honest and say I didn't train for. And I also have to be honest and say that I couldn't have done it without the amazing woman that I ran next to. I think she's converted me into a runner. I have never had more fun running through a township (Sewerage and all...) chatting about life and random things ever...Granted I don't generally run (unless I'm being chased), and I don't walk randomly through townships (OK maybe 4 years ago I did), but still it was an inspiring and humbling event that I will remember for many years to come. Especially considering I might start running... for fun... Bring on the next RUNJOZI!!!!

For the first time, in a long time, I felt like I achieved something yesterday. The last (if I remember correctly) was when I started bikram yoga last year. It was to some extent disappointing. Not the race itself, but the thought that in an entire year I haven't like I truly achieved something. That has got to change...

7 days until this course is over! 7 days until I can start living life for me! 7 days until the future begins!

New Music - Ragtime

Where have I been?
How did we change,
Caught in this strange
New music?
Say,
Was I away too long?

Just like that tune,
Simple and clear,
I've come to hear
New music.

New music.

Why, Why can't you hear the song?

His fingers stoke those keys,
And every note says "Please",
And every chord says "Turn my way."

I thought I knew
What love was but these lovers play...

New music!
Haunting me,
And somehow taunting me-
My love was never half as true.

And I as myself,
Why can't I sing it too?

His fingers stoke those keys,
And every note says "Please",
And every chord says "Turn my way."

I thought I knew
What love was
but these lovers play
New music!

Haunting me,
And somehow taunting me-
My love was
Never half as true.

Sarah, my life has changed.
Sarah, you've got to see.
Sarah, we got a son!
Sarah, come down to me...

You and your music
Singing deep in me,
Making nice to me,
Saying something so new-

New

Changing everything,
Meaning everything,

Music

Calling my heart to you...

All for you, girl.
You, Sarah.

Play that melody,
Your sweet melody,
Calling my heart to you.

You.

Just like that tune,
Simple and clear,
I've come to hear
New music-
Breaking my heart,
Op'ning a door,
Changing the world!
New music!
I'll
Hear it forevermore!

Emotions on your sleeve...

I know a lot of people that share everything about themselves with the world. Every little detail is open to scrutiny and judgment, and even though in some ways I admire that, it sets you up for an attack from people around you. A little gripe with the boyfriend, the sad, emotional songs get posted. Every 5 minutes posting "I love you"s on their facebook wall... I'm definitely not having a go at anyone in particular, but I'm sure we're all aware of it.

I'm not completely innocent here, I guess this blog is a way of me wearing my emotions on my sleeve, but the majority of people that read it are my close friends and know me very well anyway. If I had to write this on facebook, where people I hardly even know (my 'friends') read it, then that would be something completely different. I hope the people that come here to read what I have to say, do it because they want to because they are interested in my life and not for other reasons...

Over the past month, I have come to realize that love is the bane of my existence. Well it feels that way anyway. I mean, love has started wars. I also realized that I have the ability to love unconditionally, and although that creeps me out and scares the crap out of me, it also makes me realize that I can love completely and because of that be completely loyal to someone.

Being afraid of love isn't an unnatural thing. It places your whole existence on the line for someone else. I mean being in love is bliss, but it also makes you sick to the stomach. I like to think of it as almost like falling pregnant and raising a child. This tiny spark is struck that slowly builds and builds until love is conceived, but through the process of the 'pregnancy' and 'raising the child' all emotions possible get thrown at you and physical feelings that you could think of are experienced. And it's unless you are able to persist through the bad times, the child doesn't grow to be a whole and complete person. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone else, but I get it.

“Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.” -Ray Bradbury

I googled 'feelings of love', because I wanted to know what other people have had to say about it before I wrote this blog. The first few search findings weren't necessarily what I was looking for, but useful/funny none the less.
http://teenadvice.about.com/od/loveanddating/a/isitlove1.htm
http://www.wikihow.com/Express-Your-Feelings-to-the-One-You-Love

Feelings ~ Carol D. Meeks

I didn't know I could love
anyone as much as I love you
for the sound of your voice,
makes all my dreams come true.

You walk into a room, and
I know you have arrived;
my heart skips a beat when
you walk up to my side.

I hope this kind of magic stays
forever between us two,
and the whole wide world will
know that God sent me you.

Is there a right person?

We're all seeking that special person who is right for us. But if you've been through enough relationships, you begin to suspect there's no right person, just different flavors of wrong. Why is this? Because you yourself are wrong in some way, and you seek out partners who are wrong in some complementary way. But it takes a lot of living to grow fully into your own wrongness. And it isn't until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problems-the ones that make you truly who you are-that we're ready to find a lifelong mate. Only then do you finally know what you're looking for. You're looking for the wrong person. But not just any wrong person: the right wrong person - someone you lovingly gaze upon and think, "This is the problem I want to have."
- Galway Kinnell

Second Chances...

Sitting in the darkness with the African sky over head, crescent moon and the first star to appear staring at me. I wonder if they had emotion and thought, what they would be thinking now. Probably that I need to be doing my assignments and not drinking wine. 

Scrap that, that was last week. Clearly the alcohol didn’t give the stars a voice. I think this blog has taken me the longest to write. When you’re head thinks so many things all at once, writing seems pointless.

Things have been settling down slowly. The emotional turmoil is settling, it’s still there for the most part. The battle between what my heart wants to believe and what my mind keeps telling it isn’t the most exciting argument to be a part of. I read somewhere 'In the midst of difficulty lies opportunity.' It didn’t feel like that a couple days ago, my sun and moon were ripped from me by no wrong doing of my own and I had to deal with the consequences.

There is theory called the Kubler-Ross Model, which basically describes five stages of grief. A person can feel one of these at a time, several at once and they appear in no specific order.

                     Denial (“I feel fine”) 

                     Anger (“It’s not fair”)

       Bargaining (“Can we still be friends?”)

       Depression (“I’m so sad, why go on?”)

       Acceptance (“It’s going to be ok”)

The past two weeks have been an amalgamation of all of these spinning through my head at a furious rate. It’s hard to find balance and meaning when you’re inner monologue is fighting itself. 

Promises are something I don’t do lightly. In my past I have made mistakes which have led to me having to break promises. But I dealt with the consequences of breaking the promises. Little white lies probably destroy our own souls more than it does to the people we tell them to. Small things we say like “I can’t make it, I’m feeling sick” or “I’m feeling fine, honest” slow start to eat away at us and leads us to the point were bigger lies seem less wrong. 

Life is all about second chances, not third chances and fourth chances. If we don’t get a second chance at something or give something a second chance, we will never know what the possibilities are. Just because you’re not good at something the first time, or you mess things up the first time, if you really want something bad enough, learn from the mistakes you made and allow them to make the second chance better. If you are offered a second chance, take it by the horns and don't let go.

Guardian - Alanis Morissette

You, you who has smiled when you’re in pain  
You who has soldiered through the profane  
They were distracted and shut down
 
So why, why would you talk to me at all such words were dishonorable and in vain their promise as solid as a fog
and where was your watchman then
 
I’ll be your keeper for life as your guardian 
I’ll be your warrior of care your first warden  
I’ll be your angel on call, I’ll be on demand  
The greatest honor of all, as your guardian
you, you in the chaos feigning sane  
You who has pushed beyond what’s humane  
Them as the ghostly tumbleweed 
 
And where was your watchman then
I’ll be your keeper for life as your guardian  
I’ll be your warrior of care your first warden  
I’ll be your angel on call, I’ll be on demand  
The greatest honor of all, as your guardian
 
now no more smiling mid-crestfall  
No more managing unmanageables  
No more holding still in the hailstorm
Now enter your watchwoman

 
I’ll be your keeper for life as your guardian 
I’ll be your warrior of care your first warden 
I’ll be your angel on call, I’ll be on demand  
The greatest honor of all, as your guardian

Forgetting is the hard part...

I haven’t blogged for a while. When life seems to be the best it’s been in a while, one feels like it isn’t necessary to put things in writing to let the world know. You hope that people can see your happiness and share in it. Written words and actions are quite different…

I think that I blog not only to share what I feel with the world, but also to remind myself of what I’ve been through and how I felt. I’ve been judged before, for being so open and for the pictures that go along with the blog. I’m open, because people can learn from what I experience, not because I want to put in writing every detail of my life, but to give people the hope that things can change. Change isn’t a bad thing, it allows us to adapt and create the destiny through which we achieve what we are meant to and not what other people expect us to be. The pictures are because all men are visually stimulated and we appreciate beautiful things, nothing more.

People shouldn’t expect us to be good, to do the right thing and act a certain way. We should want to do these things out of our own free will, because we want to.

The past week has been an emotional roller coaster. Every conceivable emotion I have ever felt I experienced. I think sorrow was the most dominant. My heart felt like it was ripped from my chest. A friend described it pretty accurately, “It leaves you feeling like your gut has been ripped out and someone has stuck their arm up through your chest and punched your heart.”

A facebook friend posted this today and it pretty much sums up how I feel…

"Unless someone like you...cares a whole awful lot...nothing is going to get better...It's not." Dr. Suess

The Oxford English Dictionary defines forgiveness as 'to grant free pardon and to give up all claim on account of an offense or debt'. This I do freely, because I know there is a better person inside most people that they don’t always allow to show. Forgetting however, that’s the difficult thing to get right. When we see someone, hear about someone or even remember someone that has done us wrong, it reminds us of things that they have done. It’s weird though, when even though someone has torn your world apart, you can’t but help look at them and remember the good things they have brought into your life.

For Good

(Elphaba):
I'm limited
Just look at me - I'm limited
And just look at you
You can do all I couldn't do, Glinda
So now it's up to you
For both of us - now it's up to you...
(Glinda):
I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you...
Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good
(Elphaba):
It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made from what I learned from you
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend...
Like a ship blown from its mooring

By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a skybird
In a distant wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
(Glinda):
Because I knew you
(Both):
I have been changed for good
(Elphaba):
And just to clear the air
I ask forgiveness
For the things I've done you blame me for
(Glinda):
But then, I guess we know
There's blame to share
(Both):
And none of it seems to matter anymore
(Glinda):
Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
(Elphaba):
Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a bird in the wood
(Both):
Who can say if I've been
Changed for the better?
I do believe I have been
Changed for the better
(Glinda):
And because I knew you...
(Elphaba):
Because I knew you...
(Both):
Because I knew you...
I have been changed for good...

Don't Make Me Over ~ Dionne Warwick

Don't make me over
Now that I'd do anything for you
Don't make me over
Now that you know how I adore you

Don't pick on the things I say, the things I do
Just love me with all my faults, that way that I love you
I'm begging you

Don't make me over
Now that I can't make it without you
Don't make me over
I wouldn't change one thing about you

Just take me inside your arms and hold me tight
And always be by my side, if I am wrong or right
I'm begging you

Don't make me over
Don't make me over
Now that you've got me at your command

Accept me for what I am
Accept me for the things that I do
Accept me for what I am
Accept me for the things that I do

Now that I'd do anything for you
Now that you know how I adore you

Just take me inside your arms and hold me tight
And always be by my side, if I am wrong or right
I'm begging you

Don't make me over
Don't make me over
Now that you've got me at your command

Accept me for what I am
Accept me for the things that I do
Accept me for what I am
Accept me for the things that I do

Sudden changes....

Life somehow always has its curve balls. No matter how much fun you are having and no how much you’ve already been through, there is always something to create more trouble or alter the course of things. 

Today my brother and I painted the living room of his new flat. It was on old dirty ochre colour from the previous owner and we painted it a pebble stone grey. It really looks a lot neater and more impressive as a room in general.

During lunch, my brother sprung the question on me. He said my mom had burst into tears once when he asked how I was, which cascaded into her telling him that I’m gay. This was about 2 months ago. He said that was the first time he had cried since my dad had died and that he had always thought of our children playing together one day.

He seemed very accepting but at the same time not. He still sees me as his brother, but he can’t accept that me being gay wasn’t a choice that I made somewhere in my life. And even though I tried to explain, he is so stuck in his ways (as he always has been) that nothing I said got through to him. And I don’t think anything but time will change that.

To some extent I’m relieved that he knows, I expected him to react a lot worse. There were so many things that I could have brought up about our past that would have made him think things over. I had to restrain myself though. I wasn’t ready for an argument or for putting up walls, so I just let things be.

With that anti-climax to my holiday, the climax of my holiday was also reached a couple hours later. My brother booked for us to see ‘Wicked’ at the Apollo theatre in London. It was truly and amazing show. The set design, the vocals, the music, the set design and the acting were all awesome. The leads did however hit high notes that were extremely piercing.

All in all its been a pretty good holiday. Just one thing missing….

Day 3 & 4

The past two days have been pretty cool. Yesterday morning we ended up going to the beach. Going to the beach in England is like playing the lottery. Either it ends up being an amazing day or the weather is shocking. Yesterday surprisingly turned out to be slap bang in the middle of the two, it was cloudy and the wind was blowing like crazy. But as English people do, we ended up spending the day on the beach. And… had a barbecque… Which ended up being a sandy sausage roll…

Last night my brother and I made dinner for the family to thank them for having us. Prawn and chorizo tagliatelle, not half bad if I don’t say it myself.

Family interactions are always fascinating to me and how people that regularly spend time with each other interrelate with one another. The comments that people make and whether other people pick up on sarcasm, tone changes and subtle irritations. Some people regularly overact when it isn’t necessary.

Today we ended up going for lunch at a country club. The food wasn’t amazing, but the setting was beautiful. As we finished lunch, the sun came out. A drive to a beach was in order. Blue skies, sandy beaches and fresh ocean breeze.