Thirty.

This is my favourite photo of me. I was 28. It was taken at a time in my life that was in terrible turmoil and I was experiencing a great deal of emotional pain, and, for some reason, this small portrait from a difficult time is so very beautiful.

It serves, sometimes, as a reminder, that even in the face of the greatest adversity, there are small moments of beauty, which are worth acknowledging. I wasn't a Buddhist then, but as a Buddhist now, it makes sense as there is Buddhahood in every moment - even the awful ones. We just need to go find it. And often, we only get to see it in retrospect

When I got to thirty, I had already been married, divorced, lived in four different countries, had my dream job, lost my dream job, survived an abusive relationship and came out of the closet.

I had realised that none of what I believed to be true for my life was  true. I walked away from the Catholic Church and was spiritually drifting. Still a little shell shocked from the experiences I had had, I was cautious in the world, yet determined to reclaim every single ounce of my power and to rediscover who I was.

I lived in a little village called Greetham in rural England. It was idyllic and calming and just the thing to help me calm down and return to myself after a rather eventful decade.

I realised that I knew nothing about life and the world and that was okay. The smug Catholic I once was, who thought that all the answers were found in the Bible, was gone. I had a clean slate. I could become anyone I wanted to be, and still make mistakes and still know nothing, but it would all be okay.

I had an eccentric group of new friends. I was reading books on spirituality and finding one's purpose and getting past trauma. Even though the years leading up to thirty were harrowing, thirty itself was a good year to just take stock of my life and the direction I wanted it to go. I still had no idea what that was, though. I still don't, even now.

Twenty.

 I was outted in karate class when I was 19 by a 14 year old kid named Matthias. We were sparring with each other, and the conversation went a bit like this:

punch-block-punch: "So, T, there's a rumour going around that you're gay. Is it true are you a lesbian?"

kick-block-punch: "Yes. It's true. I am indeed a lesbian."

Despite my spontaneous admission, so bravely made to a teenager, I still went on to date (and later marry) a guy named Tim.

I began wrestling with my sexuality at 13, shortly after discovering what girls and boys were supposed to do together. My solution? Become an ultra-devout Catholic. Which is why my admission surprised both Matthias and me.

I was grateful for my exit from my teens. My mother was completely nuts (I am sure she had several undiagnosed psychological disorders) and I yearned for freedom. My mother dictated everything in my life: the clothes I wore, what I studied, which friends she never wanted me to see again, my curfew, which was set at a very ridiculous 9pm. I had hoped that twenty would mean my mother's grasp on me would loosen a little, but instead, it tightened to a choke hold.

By the time I reached 20, I had gone through Hepatitis A, German Measles, adrenal burnout, two bouts of clincal depression and I had broken both wrists (on two separate occasions, not all at once.) I was hopeful that things would still work out they way I wanted them too. I felt very grown up and I needed an adventure. Desperately.

I felt that the world was there, waiting for me, and I was trapped in a glass box, looking out at everyone being alive and I was stuck there, with no hope of ever being free.

I had no friends. I lost touch with some of them from High School and my mother forbade me from hanging out with one of my closest friends, Dori, because she believed she was a bad influence and a Satanic lesbian to boot. I didn't bother wasting time making friends at college. I was never going to be allowed to hang out with them. I was a very sad and lonely person. I read a lot of Stephen King, which my mother blamed for my depression a few years earlier, resulting in me having to give my entire collection away. I started reading David Eddings and other fantasy novels instead.

The only respite I had from my mother was at karate (my sister and I both attended all the classes - including the ones for kids - from 4pm to 8pm each Tuesday and Thursday) and church.

If there is anything I want to bring with me from twenty, it's that sense of adventure and the belief that something magical is waiting just around the corner. I seem to have lost that a bit.

Ten.

Me, aged 9, ready for a 'hobo' party.
I liked the tie and jacket a little too much.

I turn 40 on 26 May. That's in less than a week. And as the birthday approaches, I've been thinking more and more of other decade birthdays and who I was back then.

I like the ten year old me most of all. The me now, too, but the ten year old me was fucken awesome.

I had some odd interests. I loved reading The Unexplained magazine. Even though it was 1983 and we had a TV since 1981*, I still listened to Springbok Radio, waiting patiently for Jet Jungle and the Chappie Chipmunk Show. Back then there was such a thing called a 'radio play' and you'd listen to the stories unfold each day or in some cases, each week

I read about meditation in The Unexplained. So I tried it. One break time at school, instead of going to the field, I sat outside the classroom, cross-legged, trying to meditate. I liked it so I tried it some more. My mother freaked out when I told her I was trying to meditate when she asked me what I was doing in my room, so quiet, just sitting there with my eyes closed. After that I tried to meditate in private.

I also read about telekinesis in The Unexplained. I then proceeded to try to bend spoons like Uri Geller, and to move pencils across the coffee table in the lounge. USING ONLY MY MIND! These experiments were less successful than the meditation.

I spent a lot of time lying on my back in the grass trying to see shapes in the clouds, (officially) but I was looking for flying saucers (the real reason). To this day, day or night, I still look up at the sky... for flying saucers. I also spent a lot of time indoors writing short stories. (I've been writing short stories since I knew how to write a sentence. I was 6 years old at the time.)

My favourite TV programme was "I am Joe's heart/liver/lungs/whatever". Which both my parents thought was a little grim, but allowed me that one indulgence because I had been telling them I was going to become a doctor when I grew up. (I was also going to be a ufologist, a writer, a singer, a cartoonist, a parapsychologist, ghost hunter. ALL AT THE SAME TIME.) And there was Magnum PI and once in a while my sister would let me sneak into her room to watch Dallas.

My friends were a group of boys. I was the only girl. I didn't like any of the girls in my class. They were... 'ew - girls'. Little princesses who only played dolls and had no interest in playing cards or making weird shit out of tin foil. The only girl I liked was Cheryl C, who was a brainy kid and had cool toys like Operation. And her parents were doctors. (Turns out that both Cheryl and I are gay. Interesting.)

The books I took out from the library were mostly L Frank Baum and the Oz stories. And, interestingly, our school library had a stash of UFO books. Those came home with me several times a year.

Ten was also the time the migraines started. And I had the bitch-cunt teacher for Std 3 (Lauren Saldzman nee Stone. Yes you. Google your name and find this. I dare you.). Miss Stone destroyed my confidence. I hated her. We did a presentation on what we wanted to do when we left school. I did the cartoonest-writer-doctor-ufologist shpiel. As I stood there, in front of everyone, she yelled at me (yes, yelled) that I was stupid and would amount to nothing in my life. Yup. I still carry the scars.

I was still a cool kid, though. And there's a lot of that curiosity and anything-is-possible attitude that I would like to import into my second childhood (which starts now). Because if I ever did have a chance of having a kid, I would have been proud to have had a kid like me.



* TV only came to South Africa in 1976. The government of the time believed it to be the work of the devil.

Song.

Five Minute Friday - go over to Lisa-Jo Baker's blog and check out this week's prompt. Write for 5 minutes - only. Free form. Stream of consciousness. Whatever comes. Leave a comment so I can go read yours.

I've heard the term "soul song" before. It's a vibration, a rhythm, a melody that is uniquely yours as you move through the world. The universe is vibration and frequency and we, as beings living in this universe, are vibration and frequency.

There is something wonderful about singing your own life into being. The Australian aborigines believe that a supernatural being sang the world into being, singing the names of all the rocks, plants, animals - everything in the world. When most people think of sacred song, they think of Christian hymns and choirs in cathedrals.

I prefer the notion of someone singing a song and out pops planet earth and everything on it. It appeals to me. And I think that we can do the same.

I did six years of classical vocal training privately and part time. I understand the power of the voice, the power of a song and how music, words, melodies, chants and mantras have the power of creation. Recently, I spent some time with a friend recording mantras and it was a beautiful, deeply sacred thing.

Sacred songs are not just available in churches and temples. Sacred songs live in our souls. We just don't realise we have the ability to sing.

Anxiety

I have nothing that can accurately describe the cold terror that accompanies a full blown anxiety attack. It started with chest pains, then difficulty breathing and then then a no-holds barred full-on-full-fat-serious-motherfucking panic attack.

I have no idea what triggered it this morning. There was that idiot in the traffic. The realisation that I didn't have keys to open the office with. The receptionist/admin assistant who is off sick yet again (she fears she has finger cancer) and I have to do both my work and hers.

It was very dramatic. A lady from an adjoining office popped in to say hello and found me red faced, bent double and gasping while clutching my chest.

I hate this thing. I though I was handling things okay. Just the other day I congratulated myself on how well I appeared to be doing and that perhaps the last anxiety attack I had was, in fact, THE last.

Sitting here with the cold wet cloth pressed to my face, I feel like a complete fool. I popped the little magic pill I got from the doctor at the hospital from my last histrionic attack, and I feel like an utter fool. I have calmed down. The chest pains are gone and I have absolutely no idea whatsoever to make of what has just happened.

What I have done is disrupted several people's days. My wife raced back from Johannesburg city, my friend Joe in the opposite office block was summoned to sit with me.  And now, here I am, alone, and reasonably okay, but I have no real answer as to why this has happened. Again.

And mostly, I feel like a fool.

Warning. Caution. Invitation.

I was once in an abusive relationship. It was a long time ago. At least, it feels like a long time ago. It certainly changed me as a person and had a massive impact on my life. If I refer to that period of my life at all, I call it my time in Hiroshima shortly after the bomb dropped. Because that is what if felt like to me.

I was treated for post traumatic stress disorder. I'm okay now. I laugh. I cry. I live. What I find difficult to watch is someone walking into the mouth of the devil that is the abusive relationship. So I wrote this article, and sent it to Women24.

Brave.

Five Minute Friday (done on a Monday) from Lisa-Jo Baker's blog. This is an awesome way to shake the cobwebs out and write. You have five minutes to write on the topic selected. GO!

Brave.

You never really know you have it in you to be brave until that moment arrives when brave is really the only option. Courage is much the same.

I've been told how brave I am for having come through what I have come through in my life, but really, I did what had to be done in order to move my life forward. There was a moment in each of those instances when I could have chosen to keep the status quo, but instead, chose the only realistic option for me: be brave.

During those days, when I lived in darkness, the very act of getting up out of bed and facing the day was, to me, an act of great courage. You don't have to already have brave as a default setting in order to be brave. Brave is what happens in the moment you need it.

I wouldn't call myself brave. And other women, like Julie who ended up tetraplegic and abandoned by her boyfriend after a motorcycle accident, won't call themselves brave either. It's as though the truly brave women I know keep silent about their courage. And we are all silently courageous. We don't realise it or admit it, but it is there. Every day.

STOP. Your turn.