Moving along...

So the last blog post was something I didn't exactly plan. It was meant to be an update of all that has been happening since last year. But the absolute irony of what happened and the storm of emotions that followed was something I had to get out by writing.

Anyway, moving on...

Like I said before I don't know who still reads this blog but I have been largely absent for the past nine months. Because of that I probably have lost a lot of readers. It doesn't really bother me, I don't regret the time I had away and a lot of it was beyond my control.

In September last year our service provider got fed up with replacing the telephone lines that had gotten nicked over and over again. This is a problem in South Africa, people steel the telephone lines for the copper. The service provider eventually refused to install new lines. This meant no Internet for me other than what I had on my BlackBerry. Trying to post from my BlackBerry was a mission since the email post option didn't work very well. So I just thought "Screw it" and took a break. There have been a lot of changes in my life since then so for anyone that is still reading or interested here they are...

My baby boy Milo disappeared before Christmas last year. Milo had been spending more and more time away from my house as he seemed to be more interested in having adventures with his brothers. Eventually he only came home to eat and for a quick snuggle before setting off again. I knew I was not going to be living in the area much longer and would soon have to make a very difficult decision on what was best for Milo. But sadly I didn't have to. Milo would come home to eat but one day he just stopped coming. His brothers also disappeared we searched the area for all of them but they had vanished without a trace. We later heard that seven different cats from the farm had gone missing and someone had sighted a mountain cat- there are only two or three in the mountains where we lived. I hate to think about it so I rather would like to think that Milo and his brothers found a field with lots of mice and butterflies for them to chase. I was so heartbroken at loosing Milo...I don't think he ever forgave me for the time he broke his leg- he completely changed after that.

Since January I've moved three times. I have discovered that I do not take moving very well. It causes so much anxiety and instability in me that I become virtually useless and am prone to panic attacks. This is very surprising since I have lived in three different countries and the vast majority of my childhood was characterised by moving. The last move was significant in that after three years I have finally moved out of my parents house and onto my own. Earlier this year a friend of mine moved into a house where she needed to tutor a little girl for an hour a day in exchange for room and board and one meal every day. She soon grew tired of having children around her twenty- four- seven and offered the room to me and moved back home.

The house has got to be the oddest I have every seen. My room is very large with a bathroom that has a shower so small I need to open the door just to be able to wash properly. The house has a interesting history. It was bought by an American tycoon for his son who he later disinherited for marrying a stripper...who kept on stripping. My room was used to coach newly hired strippers on their technique. The two stripe poles where removed before my friend moved in but the floor still carries a reminder. The disinherited son later had to flee because he was wanted for questioning in a murder investigation ( he gave the gun that was used in the murder to the suspect as payment for "garden work" bet he regrets that) and agreed for the family that I am living with now to stay in the house rent free as both parents had just been retrenched from their jobs.

The family I live with are very nice, a little rough around the edges. The Dad who is a boat builder, cooks sometimes delicious and sometimes disastrous suppers that we all eat together in the kitchen and the wine is free flowing!. There are two children, a nine year old boy and a ten year old girl which is the one I tutor. Since I started with her about a month ago, I have started to strongly suspect that she is either dyslexic or ADD or both. It is a massive struggle for her to read and write and instead of spending just an hour a day with her I am spending four or five hours with her. It's tough and I feel for her, she knows somethings wrong and she genuinely wants to learn and do well. I am just waiting for the right time to broach the subject with her parents about getting her help. She is writing exams right now and it is just hectic.

Unfortunately three weeks after I moved in I found a notice from the sheriff taped onto our gate telling us that the house was being auctioned off by the bank because disinherited son had gone through all his inheritance and was now defaulting on his mortgage payments. Fortunately for us, it is very hard to evict someone in South Africa on account of the country having so many homeless people and squatters. So even if the house gets sold we have more rights than the actual buyer and the buyer by law, actually has to find us a new place to live. We also plan on evoking "Squatters Rights" ( yes they have rights)...I can picture my high- flying sister gasping in shock if she had to hear that. It sucks that I may have to move so soon after having just gotten settled.

As for work, after six months of being unemployed...I am STILL unemployed.I had a temp job covering maternity leave that come to an end in December. Employment is a real problem in South Africa. If you are a teacher, a lawyer or a doctor jobs are plentiful but most of these professionals head for foreign countries where there are more benefits, better salaries, less crime and the cost of living isn't so high. As for everyone else, South Africa for workers is a bit like Hollywood for wannabe actors and actresses. Most people here get jobs through word of mouth...it's who you know and all about being in the right place at the right time. It is vital to start building your connections starting even in high school, to get ahead. It is not unheard of to hear of someone with university degrees and even PhD's being unemployed for six months and struggling to find a job. As my connections are not exactly up to par looking for a job has been like banging my head against a brick wall.

My sister has sub-contracted me on her copy writing work and is giving me a small salary for my trouble. It is good for buying food and maybe a pair of jeans and a movie here and there, but if I had to pay rent I would be screwed. I am still studying and will be doing that full time through correspondence from July. It is ironic...I don't think I have ever worked so hard in my life as I have been doing so now...and I am the poorest I have ever been.

Anyway this has gotten a little long and I hope I haven't bored anyone to tears. I will have to break this update up into two parts as there have been two "happenings" that have had a massive impact on me this year and are very emotional to talk about.

Stay tuned....

My hope for the flowers Part 3.....

There is always a point when everything hits the fan, when the volcano finally explodes. That day came on 13Th March 2007. By now I had suicidal thoughts, I felt as though my mind wasn't my own anymore and I might do something rash. The anxiety was always with me and had became so bad it was actually physically painful- really PAINFUL. I wasn't sleeping at all and I couldn't eat, I began losing weight rapidly (this NEVER happens, I can eat my way through stomach flu). I was exhausted and my body was breaking down. I got home from work on the 13Th, it was raining. I had been convinced that I would have a car accident on the way home but was resolved that I was given one more day. I went on the Internet and read a creepy story about girl who had said to her husband one night "I'm so tired, maybe I'll be leaving this world", the next night she was killed in a car accident. I googled "premonition of death". After I read enough I went back to my room. I was looking out the window when I was overcome by intense pain, I couldn't breathe, heart was pounding, I was shaking so badly I collapsed to the floor- on the way my nails scraped the paint off walls and started bleeding. I don't remember much or how long I lay there, but I remember I was terrified and started praying.

I tearfully phoned my parents that night- I didn't tell them exactly what happened all I said is that everyone around me was dying and I felt that I was next. Both my Mom and Dad came onto phone at the same time and were praying with me. They couldn't understand what was going on. I tried to eat but couldn't. After the panic went away, the anxiety was still there but I felt disconnected from everything- like I wasn't really there but outside my body watching what was happening to me. I didn't feel pain anymore but I couldn't feel any else- I started beating my arms down on the kitchen counter just to try and feel something. By now I think the people in the house must have been scared of me and just wanted to avoid me- I don't blame them. I went and lay down on the bathroom floor for an hour just staring at the ceiling. I was hoping that my parents prays over me would save me and protect me but I knew with all certainty that it wasn't over.

I went to bed taking deep breathes to try and calm myself down. I finally managed to fall into a light dose. At 3:10am - I can remember the exact time to this day- I woke up with a painfull jolt and with one powerful, overwhelming thought in my mind- it was as though I had been thinking about it while I was asleep: God didn't exist, he had never existed, everything had been a lie, the bible was just weirdly written fairy tale and I was part of an evolutionary process that all began with a big bang. And when I died- which I felt was going to happen very soon I was going nowhere- I would just cease to exist.

For those of you that Christians or even religious or spiritual- people who have based their life on their beliefs, everything they are as a person is because of what they believe and God is their greatest source of love. Try and imagine just for one minute ( and I know it may be impossible for some of you) what it would feel like if that was taken away from you what if you found out everything you believed was a lie? Can you imagine the absolute horrendous devastation?. I was a lukewarm christian with questions but I felt as though part of me died that night and even after all these years I still don't think I will ever be the same. I was praying , pleading with the holy spirit to rescue me but there was nothing. In hindsight though, if God and his angels had suddenly opened the heavens with trumpets and harps and started speaking to me, judging by the condition I was already in, that probably would have rendered me permanently insane. I'm trying to understand I really am, but a part of me is saying, "You could have done something!".

I went to work the next morning and the minute my co- worker ( who is now one of my best friends) saw me the look on her face told me everything: the time for hiding was over. I sat at my desk the whole day, in a panic-stricken state, sweating, not being able to keep anything in my stomach, shaking, always thirsty and constantly going to the toilet (that had to be one of the most annoying symptoms). I was always very chatty and bubbly in the office, but that day I was dead quiet. All the while my co- worker calmly corrected all the BAD mistakes I was making, covered for me and generally kept people from bothering me. At some point during the day she said to me, " I know it's your anxiety, it's bad, you need to go to the doctor". I was being stubborn but she kept on insisting. Finally I called and made an appointment the next morning.

My co- worker and I went to gym after to work, I thought that would be a great outlet for my stress so really worked out hard. But it didn't do much good. I was so desensitized that when I accidentally yanked my arm the wrong way it didn't even hurt. When I went to bed, I didn't sleep as usual. My anxiety was always worse at night so I sat in bed rocking back and forth watching a Hillsong T.V episode that I had taped over and over. I even went for a walk down the street. I decided the next morning that I could not face another day like that at work.