Acceptance isn’t always a guarantee. My mind is my own and yours is yours. Today we showed how little the years matter, nor the labour, the love and the care. Sometimes life just gets in the way and people need what they need – understanding in high demand, with few who are capable of it.

One step is too far, it is too far a journey.

I want to stay here, I hate it here,

But one step, is too far a journey.

I can’t shake it off, shake what off?

Invisible shackles, the deceiving cloak

so the world can see my face.

I clasp my shoulders, palms and sweat

Close my eyes and ignore

The rest of the world’s existence.

One step is too far, one step a journey.

A journey I must take, I hate it here.

No one lives here, nor am I.

So I failed in maintaining my detox for more than one day. But I’m adamant about surviving one full 24 hours without having a single cigarette.

It’s now 2pm and I have not had one cigarette yet. This is probably the first day in about 10 years that I have had a smoke-free day. So today, was somewhat a failure in the diet stakes but will be a triumph in the health stakes. I feel like I’m actually going to do it. I’m not going to make a big deal of it and I’ve asked everyone not to make a big deal either. But it’s a big leap towards quitting. Something I haven’t been able to do and haven’t wanted to do in the last ten years.

It’s for you, Dad. It’s for you, Maka. It’s for me. It’s for my coming children. And all the people in my life that I love and want to be with for longer.

I feel a little queezy but other than that I’m feeling okay. I’m keeping myself busy and keeping in high spirits. The nicotine patches are the best. They really help the cravings and are making it so easy, physically, to stop the cravings. There were a few moments, mentally, that I felt like I wanted to break the treaty… the smoko treaty. But I’m staying strong.

A failure for diet, a triumph for health. Not a bad day at all.

And I will float in the misty waters

Once the waters of her womb,

She sheltered and I called home.

Connect, not with a chord,

But strings of a harp she plays in me.

The melody hums across the mirror

When I look at her reflection.

A mother cannot part

From the life she made

Without leaving behind a shadow

Of herself waving farewell.

Never. And now yes.

We are parting, briefly and too long.

I will miss you, always with you.

Apart. A part of you.

Till then. Till Forever.

Nonetheless, it reminds you that the world still has angels and sometimes its lends them to you.

Until… you remember the goal and why to strive towards it. Or you realise the worthlessness of the goal and move towards something else. Take a step towards something, more meaningful. 

As fucked up as depression may be, you find yourself asking these questions. I suppose I was in a better state than I was before, otherwise I wouldn’t have seen the green pastures on the other side. Definitely not a year or two ago. But now, I have analysed or excessively anal-ysed my life, my world and the things and people in it. Who matter, what matters, what doesn’t, who doesn’t. And today, is the step towards something else. 

I want to have children. I want to have children with my loving and beautiful-souled husband. So I will prepare myself physically and mentally/emotionally for that journey. And not just for my kids, but also for my confidence and my peace of mind. I have gained 8 kilos since three years ago and although it is a small amount to some (or huge to others) I am not fit. I am not healthy. I smoke and I’m smoking more and more. I will not burden myself with it anymore nor will I burden my children with it. 

I love my life and want to live it, long. It’s a fucked up world. I know. But it’s a beautiful world too. I want to stick around.

It would be ten years since he passed, on 27 Dec 2009. Ten years fly by so quickly, I still feel like that little girl that cried out for her Daddy during her brother’s eulogy at church. For a 16 year old, it’s hard to comprehend death. You’d think that you would be grown up enough to understand the implications of your father dying. But I don’t think I’ve ever really understood, dealt, accepted. I still need to now. Has much changed in 10 years? No matter the years, is death ever understood, dealt with, accepted? 

The answer is NO. Dad was the first person I ever lost, and every person thereafter is a different experience. Grief surprises you, its a tricky thing. You never know… if it will slap you in the face, make you laugh or kick you while you’re already down. And it never dies, only its voice gets smaller in your mind so that you can hear, so you can live life without the deafening tears. I miss you.

So here it is… I hope you enjoy the pieces I post on here. Feel free to make comments as you please. Hopefully this blog is able to return something, anything – a thought, an idea or a reflection of some kind of the human condition. Thanks and again, welcome. 

MCAM