The Beating of a (new) Heart

We were dancing in the club. It was a normal night out for me and my three dearest friend. Laughs were exchanged, smiles wide on our faces. Fun was the order of the night and for once I was offering to be designated driver. I didn’t mind – the company was excellent enough for me to have a good time without a drink.

Later the evening Mienke (my best friend and nothing short of a sibling to me), and I were dancing on the dance floor. It wasn’t particularly packed, but the drunk youngsters around me were in their own universes. In our universe, Mienke and I were dancing and letting go after a stressful week.

It was as if we both combusted into a thousand stars when one of our favourite, and probably meaningful songs came on.

This song, Pumping Blood, was originally done by NoNoNo and was covered by Lea Michele in Glee. [Side note: I prefer the Glee-version]. Mienke and I stumbled across this song during a time last year where R had just passed away and I was looking for some form of hope. We both agreed that this song would play again one day when I was okay and every lyric would make perfect sense.

Music is an important element to my life. When the creative side of me is taking over a great span of my head, music calms me, quiets me, or silences me for a few minutes. When I need help, or a pick-me-up, music has always been the magical cure.

So, when this song came on, we danced like there was no end to the world.

In one part of this song, the lyrics go something like:

“‘Cause it’s your heart,
it’s alive, it’s pumping blood,
And the whole wide world is whistling.”

For some time now, these lyrics has signified the new chapter I’ve begun writing on in my life. After a depressing, troublesome and heartbreaking year, I’ve now come back to a point of familiarity. From here, I’ve now realised that my broken heart has been mended and that I’m standing taller than ever.

My blog over the past year has contained many entries about my struggle and continuous feelings regarding R’s suicide and how it’s hurt me in many ways. It’s been a journey that took me to where I am now and I’ve always tried to share the lighter side of every struggle with you all. I really hope I have.

Today, I want to tell you, that even in the darkest times, believe. In it’s purest form, belief keeps your broken heartstrings and pieces alive. When you heal and glue your heart back together and one day find yourself at the dawn of a new day, then you will pat yourself on the back for believing in yourself – even in the darkest of times.

There is nothing more rewarding than standing tall with your new beating heart after a punch that life threw your way. It’s satisfying and oddly cocky to stare at life and let it know you made it up that steep mountain.

I still remember putting my hand on my chest on 27 May 2014 and not feeling my heart beat. It was devastating and soul crushing at the least. But as I was dancing away in the club with Mienke, I felt my new heart beating faster than a speeding train.

The beating of my (new) heart has confirmed what I have suspected for some time now: I’m a survivor of Life’s dark side. And with that being said, I’m ready to start venturing into this new chapter of my life and share it with all of my fellow bloggers.

A huge thanks to each and every person who has commented on a post with kind words and encouraging messages. You all made me stronger and made me realise my full worth and potential.

Now.

Upwards, onwards and onto a new journey.

[My friend Mienke and I – It takes 23 years of friendship for someone to tell you: “I’m glad you’re finally smiling like the rays of the sun, my love.” ]

Curate those words carefully

It’s one of those lessons in life that I had to learn the hard way. You know, those lessons that leave you so drained and wrecked that you literally question every moral fiber of your existence. A lesson that I certainly would never forget.

Words are the building blocks of history, society, people, relationships and evolution. So much as words and actions go hand in hand, words are still those powerful weapons in your arsenal that you have to look after carefully. While your mind is filled with thoughts, it’s words that make up these thoughts and hold more than enough power to devastate a small country at most… (Ed note: maybe I was being a bit too dramatic there… At least maybe a small community?!)

I had to steadily learn that in life you can’t drop words like hot potatoes and expect people not to run and hide for cover or hold out their hands to scoop them up like ice cream. First problem being that you shouldn’t drop them like hot potatoes, second problem being that you should always carefully think what you want to achieve with words.

It was the night before R committed suicide that I came to realise what purpose words really play in our lives.

We were out for dinner with someone he knew. (ed note: I refrain from calling her a friend, as the lesson of this tale is that you should curate your words properly and she is not worthy of being called a friend.) At some point during the evening he asked us both what method of suicide do we think would be faster: carbon monoxide poising via a hosepipe through a car window in a shut garage or a makeshift barbecue an enclosed space. I really didn’t think much of this, but didn’t answer his question. Our companion at dinner went on to elaborate her theory. I just sat there.

I waited till she left for the bathroom before I turned to him. He rubbed his face in the familiar way he use to when he was stressed. I was half dreading to hear what was eating at him, as I had been expecting for a few weeks now that he was ready to end our relationship. But, the comment he made seconds ago was picking at me and I dropped the words like hot potatoes.

“What’s up? Are you okay? One does not simply ask that sort of stuff and there’s not something going on. If you need to talk to me, then you should do it. I’m listening and I’ll help, but I refuse to entertain such talk.”

My words weren’t really that carefully curated. They just fell straight from my brain and I was left to just sit there and receive the backlash he was about to give me.

“Stop being such a freakin’ drama queen. Just keep quiet and stop worrying about things that aren’t really there.”

The words dropped on me like bombshells and pounded me. ‘Till this day I still don’t know if it was the icy stare or his tone of voice that hurt me, but all I do know is that both our words weren’t carefully curated at all.

So, the night went on and I was still left disturbed by the conversation.

The Monday afternoon was the last physical written talk we ever had. Our last texts were me joking about him still being alive and him joking back saying “it’s just as luck would have it”.

It’s only today that I am left to realise what importance words hold in our lives. When we do not attempt to curate them carefully, we drop hot potatoes to the floor and at the worst throw bombshells towards people we care about the most.

Words hold a powerful, significant and subconscious impact on our brains even long after they have been spoken. Not a lot of us realise this and as a result people have been left broken, hurt and shattered due to the wrongs words having been spoken.

In this day and age where hatred, sadness, hurt and pain are precursors to every day we roam this planet, we need to start finding a balance in curating the words we speak a bit more carefully. Maybe this is just me thinking wishfully, but I’d love to see us a human race curate the crap that comes out of our mouths at times…

*sigh* In a perfect world hey…

Dream a little dream of me…

[26 weeks]

There was an intense stare. The words reverberated through me. My heart was racing and my fists were clenching tighter. It was a fight that had started for some absurd reason, but it seemed like it had a purpose. Like it was happening for the right reason and that whatever was being said, needed to be said. His eyes hit mine again, trying to stare me down. I remember them, the same way as they stared me down the last time we had an intense fight.

I shook violently awake. It was a dream. A nightmare? It was a dream. I tried calming myself, but it was 03:00 in the morning and the darkness, tears rolling down my cheeks and the emotions flooding over me that was far more overpowering than me seeking refuge from calamity.

This was not the first dream I had of R. But it was the first dream in which we violently fought over everything that had happened. It seemed so real to me that even as I sat in the dark room, breath racing, crying, I felt like he was there beside me. Waiting for me to retort and him to dish out the next argument.

I laid my head back down. It didn’t help to lull myself to sleep. The damage had been done. I stared at the ceiling. I suddenly longed back to the glow in the dark stars I had stuck to it when I was younger. They always calmed me down…

The next morning I hopped onto the train. I could feel the dream still rattling on my cage. I couldn’t remember what we were fighting about. It was like I knew we fought, but my brain was somehow cocooning me against the already painful experience of a ‘fight’. As I sat down in the seat, and I looked out of the window, my tired brain lost it’s grip and I got a flashback from the dream.

I wasn’t fighting at full strength. The hatred was there. Anger was plenty and the resent was flowing over the cup. But, somehow I knew it still wasn’t the full capacity at which I wanted to fight with against R’s decision to end his life. Something was keeping me back. I also saw how I let him march over me and try and pilot my feelings and arguments. I shook my head as to physically try and force the flashback to dream out of my head.

An entire day was spent on the dream. Analyzing it. Analyzing it some more. Trying to put it out of my mind. Trying to remember some more.

That night, I got home and felt like I had just ran a marathon. Plopping myself down on my bed, I started once again at the ceiling.

Before I closed my eyes I took in a deep breath, jumbled the words I wanted to say around in my head and summoned the courage to talk to R.

Surely enough, I was choking the words out.

It was like a steam engine. At some point, I was gasping for air and I felt a bit stupid that I was talking to the walls and expecting my dead boyfriend to listen and hear me. But, I powered on.

When I was done, I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

This time, I dreamt I was walking along the V&A Waterfront and browsing the stores. Soon enough I spotted R in the dream. He was sitting on the docks looking over the water. I was hesitant to go talk to him. I didn’t go talk to him. I left him on the docks…

I still feel guilty to a great extent for not being there enough for R before everything went down. That he might have been throwing so much signs my way and been crying for help and I just chose to turn a blind eye. In a way, this guilt wracks me and I don’t know how to cope with it.

I just wish I could turn back time and make more of an effort.

Everybody get down! We’re doing the Emotional Limbo!

Psychologists who have studied people in grief and mourning have found that they all have this one period in common, where they seemingly get caught in a purgatory between emotions: have it be an Emotional Limbo.

It can’t be traced as to when this happens or why it actually happens, but one theory suggests that this happens when the person is faced with a sudden existential crisis of pending emotions that are smashing into each other like cars on the freeway – and they don’t know how to go forward, or move backwards.

Well. As it seems, I was caught in my own emotional limbo of sorts.

92 days later and a huge pile-up was forming on my highway and as I was turning around to maybe just take a few steps back, I rammed myself into some other emotions I was running away from. I was truly caught in an emotional limbo and this not a blessing in disguise.

In front of me was a deep, dark brewing storm of anger, whilst the path behind me had so much denial and sadness on it, that it looked like a battlefield of landmines. This sight scares the hell out of me every time I think of it, and makes me want to rather choose the emotional limbo above all than to move forward or two steps backwards.

This weekend would’ve been R’s 30’th birthday celebration.

For this too, I’ve been stuck in limbo.

Would I dare to attempt to celebrate it or would I just hide under the covers, staying angry at him for abandoning me in this cruel and ugly world?

Even staring at my desk, memories of him that I’ve kept up on my cubicle wall, I’ve been debating whether or not to tear it down or keep it up. Staring at a note he left me or a little poem he scribbled down, either made me so sad or had be spewing with anger.

This limbo was not what I envisioned, but again, I didn’t envision him dying. Whilst I’ve been trying to deal with that, I should maybe be trying to deal with the limbo as well.

As I just typed this sentence, I wanted to burst out in tears again. Sadness. My friend, person and confidant wasn’t here anymore.

I knew anger would be around in a few hours when I realised he’s gone and won’t be here tot celebrate his birthday with us.

As if stuck in a mean storm brewing on the Atlantic ocean, I was being tossed between the waves of anger and sadness and I was getting fed up with this monotonous happening that seemed to play itself out every single second of every single day.

Although I can’t force my feelings or emotions, I really wish I could force myself out of this limbo…

But, in a few weeks time I might be blogging about the next feeling and it’s pro’s and con’s. And this idea sort of makes the storm around me seem a lot more like a daunting rainfall.

As long as I was caught in this terrible game of emotional limbo, I might as well try to rack up the world record or a spot in the Olympic team for 2016.

.* Side note: I should stop being a sarcastic ass…