Tuesday, March 25, 2014

This is the Life

At my age not only do I have to contemplate a life alone; a life where I pay my own bills, dream my own dreams and find some kind of contentness in that life - as much as my heart cries against it. I find myself also having to be extra careful around men, the species I've always felt more comfortable with.

I've never been much of a flirt. Men have always seen me as "one the guys". As a kid, my fondest memories are of my boy classmate who lived nextdoor to me.  He would make me play goalkeeper with 10 other boys. I didn't know, but he secretly liked me and said as much in a love letter he wrote to me which, by the way, I ripped to shreds along with his heart in front in his face! (I still deny that! I don't remember doing it!)

Fast forward a few years and I was the awkward 16 year old who had really never been kissed. I had no idea how to be coy or to catch a boy's attention in a flirtatious way, but I knew how to crack jokes, talk sport and just hang out ( because relationship talk would be different wouldn't it?)

Moving on to my early 20s and I was still a dork. A young man had his sights on me but I fumbled my way so badly through that that he lost his patience and left me to my awkwardness.

Now here I am, 28 years old and I look back on years of continued blunders, but now it's more serious. I meet men who are in  serious relationships  and wish they had met me sooner ( his words), married men whose wives are forever looking at how I'm dressed or how I bend so I don't lure their huabands into my trap (seriously?!)

I don't know how I went from a tomboy to a some kind of fox, but I'm here. I can't change where I come from and I'm glad I've grown into my womanhood and I don't like having to feel like I must apologise for it, but I don't want to offend anyone at the same time. Sometimes I wish my heart would be spoken for so I would not be used or made to look like a common harlet.

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Life

My phone rang with bad news and for once I wasn't alone. Hugs, words of concern were both ready at my service, but I didn't want any of it. I longed to be left alone to deal with the news. I couldn't describe what it was that I needed...

For many years things would fall apart when I am alone and every time I would wallow in self pity wondering why I deserved to be so isolated; why I was always left to my own devices when I wanted to be smothered with support. But the thing is, when everything fails, the people who are "there for you" are actually unknowingly there for themselves. They check on you and fuss over you so they can call themselves good friends in the end. It sounds harsh and unwelcome, I know, but I understand that the intentions are good...

I always saw myself as an extrovert with a love for people. I never wanted to spend a moment alone. At first I resented being alone, but now I prefer it. I don't know how to co-exist. I can give support for as long as one needs it. I can perform acts of kindness that will make you weep in gratitude, but when the tables are turned, I don't know what I need from anyone. I'm not even sure I know what it is that I need from myself at that time....

I remember an old blog I wrote. I longed to be The Man in the Arena. Here I am in the arena, stratergising, sweating and even bleeding. I wonder now if I understood what I was really asking for because the Man in the arena is in there by himself and depends on his own devices to survive to the end. I think I want to go back to the bench... I didn't watch this game attentively enough to know how it is actually played.