What Would My Fat Buddha Fairy Do?

I have recently found a new way of life. A life without drama, negativity and people posing as your friends. Imagine I have a Buddha on my shoulder wearing pink fairy wings. Something to that extent.  

It’s all very well saying that, but being able to adopt it and live with it and make sure you stand by it, is extremely difficult especially at this point in time. 

It really is working for me. I don’t get involved in gossip (I have been so out of the loop that I no longer know that this one suddenly has a 4 month old or that that couple divorced a year ago), I do not like drama and I tend to run in the opposite direction the minute I can smell its arrival in the air.

Unfortunately, my Buddha fairy has been challenged on the odd occasion and it is as if I can feel the thing, throwing a tantrum, perched on my shoulder. 

I have acquaintances who I have known for years, people who used to be really good friends and who I have chosen to either get rid of or to just be polite to because I really don’t believe in being rude to everyone (just the few who deserve it). 

Imagine this scenario:

You have this friend right, who you were extremely close to and you spoke to him/her about everything, allowing him/her to come running to you should they have a crisis or something they want advice on. Shit happens and when they seem to be showing support, they are actually bad mouthing you behind your back to another good friend of yours. 

To cut a long story short, you just couldn’t be bothered with someone who can so quickly talk about you in that way when all you have done is nothing but be supportful and offer the best advice you have, so you stop the contact altogether and you move on. 

You never speak to that person and when you see them out and about you get and give the odd ‘hello’, just to be polite. 

So, you end a getting a message from them the one day saying they thought of you and wanted to know if you would like to meet up sometime. (You don’t really want to because you have nothing to say to them and whatever happened between the two of you, was enough to put you off until the rapture.) Anyway, you agree and leave it at that. 

A week or so goes by and you end up seeing them out. Well, sadly people do not change. You receive a half-hearted hello, a look that could kill a pot plant and awkward silence between the two of you, with one-worded responses from them when you try to start a conversation. 

So, what should I do? The Buddha fairy is advising me to just let it go and to get on with it, she/he is definitely not worth the frustration and the irritableness. They are no friend of yours and if they were, you would not be in the situation you were in now. 

Sometimes I feel like gagging the Buddha fairy because I feel like asking them what the hell their problem is. After five minutes of contemplation, I realise that that wouldn’t really work. I’d probably get an idiotic answer or an excuse and they don’t mean that much to me in order for me to try to sort everything out. SO, I move along swiftly and keep going, with that Buddha fairy sitting on my shoulder, clumsily and pulling the middle finger to the assholes behind me. 

Another scenario:

You start dating this really awesome guy who happens to have really cool friends, you all get along and you genuinely have a good time when you see them.

Only problem: His good friends happen to be his ex-girlfriends best friends.

In a way, I see it as a compliment towards him, as they obviously enjoy his friendship and they like hanging around with him. But where does it place you in all of this?

Word gets around that the ex-girlfriend is not happy at the fact that you seemed to have replaced her and she no longer wants them to be around you or your boyfriend.

I look at this scenario and I think two things: INSECURITY and HIGH SCHOOL.

Unfortunately for this ex-girlfriend, you no longer have any respect for her or the desire to even know her on a first-name basis. I understand there are two sides to every story and you have only heard the preferred side, but from what you have been told, you do not wish to be in the same area, let alone the same building as she is. 

So where does this leave you?

It leaves you as someone who has been dragged into an extremely awkward situation, with people you have just started to get to know, with a resentment and hostility towards the perp as it is. It’s not a good situation to be in and it constantly bites at your ass. 

So what does the Buddha Fairy tell you to do? 

My Buddha Fairy has told me to just let it go, which is extremely hard as every time her name or the situation is brought up, you feel like you want to cry. No one likes to hear about their new partner’s ex- girlfriend all the time and you are made to feel as if you are the bottom denominator in it all, along with your boyfriend. 

Another option would be just to let it all go and to move on in another direction to that of the new friends. Is there any point living in the current situation where you constantly feel irritable, upset, hurt and angry? In a perfect world, everyone would get along and even if the ex did not have mental issues, it wouldn’t work at all as I do not want to be around my boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend. Nobody does.

So, unfortunately, everyone feels awkward and I don’t blame them. All because of one female throwing tantrums. 

You do not expect anyone to choose and they don’t expect to choose either, but how easy is it going to be when there is a get-together or a jol planned and you have to juggle between different people, without insulting or hurting other people’s feelings? It’s not. 

At this stage, my fat, clumsily Buddha is patting me on my shoulder and rubbing my earlobes for some comfort, as not even he knows what to say or to do. The only advice he can give to you is to be the better person, to try to remain friends with these people and to just let it go.

It may be the hardest thing to do and you obviously don’t feel very nice about it but listening to my Buddha seems to be the best thing I can possibly do.

Nazi Assholes Grate My Skin

‘Why would you want that?’

‘Because its different’

I am utterly disgusted and appalled at the casualness of the above statement made and I take extreme offence to idiots that lack the intelligence to comprehend what a symbol, like a swastika, means to millions of people and families, ruined and killed in something that STILL seeps evil and fear 68 years later.

I believe that there are two kinds of people in a situation like this one. Your first type would be the die-hard Nazi follower. The type that has Mein Kampf placed on his bedside table and read and followed religiously. Your second type happens to be a ‘wishy washy’ hypocrite; the type who gets a swastika tattooed but remains friends with other races. Which ever type, neither of them possess the intelligence or the capacity to comprehend the true meaning and destruction that the swastika symbol has caused, showing zero respect to other cultures and abandoning the responsibility they took upon themselves when they finished their session in the tattoo parlor.

What I love about these assholes is that they feel no ‘skaam’ in advertising and even bragging about getting a swastika tattoo and when I or someone else confronts them with the ‘Why would you want that?’, they have no f*cking clue. They can’t validate their reasoning and they definitely cannot justify why a swastika should be tattooed, making them look like a bigger idiot and leaving a very awkward feeling hanging in the room.

I take the utmost offence to people who decide to parade swastikas and Hitlertarian views. I once came across an older male in Pick n Pay, covered in swastikas. The desire to pick up the biggest piece of fruit available and aim it at his head, has never been so strong, then spitting in his trolley, showing my utmost disrespect and disgust for someone who shows such a lack of respect for those around him. By reacting to him, is probably what these assholes want. They want the confrontation and the hype and I could be nasty by saying that I’d like to round all of these pricks up and dump them in the centre of the Cape Flats gangland, arming the gangsters with the necessary materials to beat the living crap out of them, societies justice, as some would say, but I will not stoop to their level.  Just saying.

So, kids, getting swastika tattoos is ‘not cool’ and it does not prove that you are ‘bad ass’, it just shows that you are an asshole and you are more than likely to go down first if there ever was a race war. Survival of the fittest. In fact, it shows that you are disrespecting every one of those people who suffered, who was judged and who died during the reign of Adolf Hitler and I am sure that they see it as spitting on them. You’re the one who will have to deal with an angry mob, should you ever enter heaven, think about that.

If you’re going to get a swastika tattoo, you’re an asshole and the tattoo artist who did it for you is an asshole too.  You’re either a Nazi or you are not. That is the power of a swastika. You cannot be on the fence about it. You either despise other races and sex orientations or you don’t: YOU ARE EITHER A RACIST OR YOU ARE NOT. Make up your mind, if you are not then I suggest you either remove that tattoo or you keep it secret because bragging about it just makes you look like a HYPOCRIT ASSHOLE who will eventually get fucked up should the wrong person see it.

Go visit the Jewish museum in Cape Town (if you don’t burst into flames first) and then come and tell me you want a swastika tattoo. Tell me that seeing and reading about poor innocent children being experimented on and killed by Hitler’s orders, does not affect you. Please tell me that seeing piles of dead, starving bodies does not affect you. Tell me that millions of children who lost their parents in front of them by Nazis does not affect you. The list can go on and on and on. Either you haven’t thought the whole idea about being a Nazi through, or there is just something missing.

There are boundaries and limits to ‘Freedom of Expression’. A swastika is no where near those limits. Freedom of expression is only allowed if it DOESN’T incriminate others’ belief systems.

DON’T ARGUE THAT IT IS AN ANCIENT HINDU OR BUDDHIST SYMBOL, YOU ARE NEITHER A HINDU NOR A BUDDHIST. 

SA’s 'Best' Crime Writer Fails On Reader’s First Try

Local crime writer tries to represent SA’s personal demons

Deon Meyer, hailed as ‘South Africa’s best crime thriller writer’, provides his readers with his fourth book, Devil’s Peak.

Born in the wine lands of the Western Cape in the 1950’s, Meyer started writing at the age of 14. An Afrikaans writer, he published his first novel in 1994 and since then, his individual pieces of work have been translated into 25 different languages including English.

With its original Afrikaans title, Infanta, Devil’s Peak won ‘The Golden Crowbar’, the highly sought Martin Beck award for Best Crime Novel translated into Swedish back in 2010.

‘Meyer paints a wonderful picture of the dark side of the rainbow nation with corrupt cops on the take, drug cartels on the make and ingrained racism among the police (....) Against the odds Meyer leaves us with a resolution that is both poignant and supremely satisfying.’ Peter Millar, The Times 

‘The biggest disappointment about the book is that Meyer doesn't seem to trust his own abilities, and insists on heaping more onto the story than it can ultimately bear. Things get really out of hand, and some of the plot-twists seem implausible.’ Complete Review.com  

The themes in Devil’s Peak mainly revolve around justice, neglect, failure and human instinct.

The justice South African civilians seek the neglect of family and what’s important, the failure to punish those accountable and the human instinct to do what is needed in order to survive.

The basic plot revolves around a middle-aged, alcoholic cop who has to deal with losing his family on one hand and hunting down South Africa’s next big serial killer, Artemis, on the other. The story delves into three main character’s lives – the cop, Benny Griesel, the killer – Thobela Mpayipheli and a Capetonian prostitute, Christine Van Rooyen. The experiences of all three characters at the time of the man-hunt develop ‘links and chains’; a timeline and the connections between all three become apparent to the reader, despite the characters’ naivety. Each dealing with their own demons, the story slowly but surely unravels an all too real situation, which showcases emotion and tragedy.

Meyer has some good descriptions, which I believe is needed in any story. The typical ‘Show, don’t tell’ rule. Based in the Western Cape, local readers will be able to proudly relate to the different areas and the descriptions he has attached to them. ‘I’ve been there; he couldn’t have described it any better’.

Whether the translation from Afrikaans to English has a slight part in it, I found the book to ‘drag’ on. At times the reader wants to get to the point, but too much description and emotional analysis gets in the way, with the reader becoming bored and not really concentrating. At most times, I found myself thinking of other things, whilst reading because it just didn’t grab my attention. I also felt that the character’s where ‘typical’.  For example, the typical alcoholic cop who loses his family because of his habit, with pre-meditated actions made by the reader because we have all read or known about someone just like him, there is nothing exciting about his characters. Too much was crammed into something that could have potential, with too much happening at once, causing confusion because you just don’t know what the hell is going on suddenly in the next paragraph.

If you want to read Deon Meyer, don’t start with this book. Hopefully the others are better.

(Research:)
Complete Reviews: http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/trcrime/meyerd4.htm
Deon Meyer Official Site: http://www.deonmeyer.com/books/devil.html
                                       http://www.deonmeyer.com/

I've been hit over the head with a hardcopy bible by a manic preacher my whole life

I have a curious nature. They say this is what is needed in order to be a great journalist. Unfortunately, the following blog is neither about my unhealthy curious tendencies nor the career path I am still on the fence about. 

I happen to be on the fence about many things, specifically the God issue. I was born into a Catholic family, where baptism, your first holy communion, regular confessions, confirmation and church every Sunday was expected from your ‘faith’. Since I had no choice in the matter, I was thrust into this mainstream religion with no voice of my own or no opinion really. You don’t question it, who are you to question God? You do what is expected of you, even the ten Hail Mary’s you have to say for stealing chocolate out of your mother’s bed side drawer.

My grandmother was deeply religious. Although she has passed away, I will always remember her for her faith and her belief in God. If she got any closer to the church, she would be a martyr. Not because she attended every mass that took place, but because she was a genuine person and there was not a shrink of nastiness within her. She too was brought up in the catholic faith and I wonder today if she ever questioned it. Shortly after she passed, I slowly let go of something that had been a part of my childhood. Let’s face it; my mother made sure I carried on the Catholic faith to make my grandmother happy. (My mother is not a religious person either and I remember the endless arguments between the two of them over my parent’s divorce and the fact that she never returned to church afterwards). I let go of God and the church situated a few streets from home and I moved on with my life. I believe that I got to a point, when my grandmother passed away, where I questioned God in his all entirety. He made me suffer the loss of her, who I happened to be the closest to. Is this how he repays those who dedicate their entire life to him? Throat cancer that left her to starve to death, literally. No, not in my eyes. That wasn’t worth getting a front row seat in heaven. I will probably be burned for saying this, but I would rather go to hell then see what I saw through her suffering. 

I will not lie and say I never believe in God. I don’t exactly know what I believe in. Though it has been pounded into my head and I’ve been dragged through about 18 Lent periods, I find myself on the odd occasion questioning my ‘faith’. (I put faith in abbreviated because I don’t even know if I possess that either).  On the odd occasion I think of God and then I remind myself that I am not a believer. Whether this be the religious background of mine which hasn’t quite left the system yet or even the devil, as some may believe, I really don’t know. Could it be the devil? 

I watched Anthony Hopkin’s latest movie this evening. The Rite. Although I am a horror fan and I enjoy these types, these movies push me back into my questioning phase. If something so evil, such as a demon or a possession can actually exist, then there has to be something to counter-steer it? Would that be God? Is this world just evil with no God? How do I answer these questions?

I believe in demons and I definitely believe in possessions. You might ask me then: ‘How the hell can you believe in one and not the other?’ (Excuse the pun). I actually can’t answer that question. Maybe I believe in the evil side because that’s all we see nowadays and God just doesn’t seem real. Where is he when 14 month old baby, innocent, gets raped by a paedophile in his home? I surely don’t know, but I know for sure something evil is there in his place. 

Over and over again, I have heard that faith is needed in order to believe.  Maybe that faith has never been there to begin with? Maybe if I wasn’t shoved into something I didn’t truly understand then I would have possibly found it properly in my own way? I am not blaming anyone, for those before knew no different, they were also brought up to believe in what I was told to. 

I get slightly worried when I possess no inclination or no ‘tug’ towards God. I remember as a child, sitting in church, fidgeting and staring at the colourful glass stained windows, the priest who was meticulous and somewhat boring, with zero enthusiasm said something that will stick with me forever; ‘To not believe is to open yourself up to danger’. The danger being the evil, the demons, Satan – whatever you want to call God’s enemy. Basically he was saying is that you become vulnerable to these things in many forms, whether it be evil in or life or a demon following you, without your knowledge. Why do I believe this but I refuse to grasp the concept of God?

Maybe something has to happen to me in order to believe in him, I really don’t know. Ask me if I believe in heaven and hell and I will tell you no, but secretly something deep down inside me instantly says yes, yet again that might have been the scripture I got bashed over my head with all through my innocent years or it actually might be some shred of faith or hope that just hasn’t seemed to surface, for some reason. If I had to go to a priest with the above mentioned, he would look straight at me and say: ‘This is the devil’s work, he is trying to destroy your faith’. So be it, if it is the devil’s work, it may very well be. 

I definitely feel like Gabriel Byrne in Stigmata, the typical priest who no longer knows why he believes in God but miraculously comes across a possessed girl who happens to restore his faith. I just haven’t come across that ‘possessed girl’ just yet, so to speak. I may never come across it in fact, but something like this never goes away. Why do I pray to God when I am scared? Why do I ask God to help me when I confess to others that I am a non-believer? Religious upbringing or faith that is dwindling but hasn’t disappeared just yet? 

Maybe that crucifix I bought, for no apparent and known reason, will make an appearance outside of the box I have placed it in one day. 

If this makes no sense, I apologise. It’s a ramble in which I feel I needed to write down after watching that movie.

'Where's Tripoli?' She Says, Flipping Through The 'How To Flirt In The Work Place' Article

I normally buy the Cosmo on the odd occasion when I am in one of those ‘empowered-go-female’ moods. I used to buy it religiously a few years back, flipping through the pages of fashion and reading the ‘How-to-catch-a-man’ features. Either my personal tastes or my thought pattern has changed because I happened to buy one last night for the f*ck of it and I will say that I am utterly disappointed in where it stands today.

Reading the September issue, it was like reading one of the previous magazines that I had bought so many years ago. The same old shit. Nothing new or exciting, just the bright colors and the advertising that helplessly reels us women into buying it. It stands out on the Pick n Pay magazine shelf like a chocolate bar during the peek of our menstrual cycle.

Firstly, I don’t see Kim Kardashian as an inspirational woman. Correct if I am wrong, but she is far from what I would want my daughter to be. She became famous due to her high-powered lawyer father who just happened to get OJ Simpson acquitted back in the D. Had it not been for him, Ms Kardashian wouldn’t be where she was today. Yes, she is attractive for all her Armenian beauty but what else does she exactly have to offer? I can’t think of anything. Recently married to a sports star she probably hasn’t known for more than a year, magazines like this love to highlight the ‘unnecessary’. Yes, I look at all the photos splashed everywhere and think ‘Nice top, I could wear that.’ That’s about it.

Secondly, who actually takes the sex advice (these magazines offer) seriously? I don’t. ‘Your sex life, with a rocket. How to get the fireworks back!’ Really now??? If I was a) having sex at this point in time and b) experiencing difficulties within the bed sheets, do these magazines think I’ll find the answers flipping through the Gucci adverts and the lingerie catalogue? Isn’t that what sex therapy is for? Or trying to communicate with your partner, without a redundant magazine article which gets spruced up and reformatted every couple of months? ‘’Sorry babe, the Cosmo said we shouldn’t argue because it will damage our sex life. BUT they do show us how to do this new kinky sex style….’ I’m not completely ripping these magazines off, they do offer some interesting stuff every now and then, like the amazing giveaways and fashion tips (which are not included in a Mr. Price budget) but it just seems to me that these magazines find their target audience completely incapable of being in control of their own lives. You having sex problems? Check out the sex section where we show you how to please your partner like your first time together. Having weight issues? Check out how Kim Kardashian keeps the figure she has? 

I know us females need some sort of encouragement every now and then and something to keep our morale and our images on level. Maybe I am not one of those females who will be working while wearing the Calvin Klein’s latest collection or driving home from work in the latest car which Cosmo told me is the best buy of this year.

After doing my course this year, you soon realize what real journalism is. Maybe it’s a good thing, maybe it’s a bad thing but I’d much rather read a feature article on a respected tattoo artist and what her views are on than an article on how to reach a better orgasm. (To be vulgar, I have had no problem reaching my climax in the past, so articles like that make me go to the star sign section instead).

Malema’s disciplinary hearing vs. 10 tips to flirt in the workplace? That’s a rhetorical question for me today.

It wouldn’t have been years ago when all I worried about was myself and how I looked or where I was seen. I guess that’s what these magazines are for. Women who live in a world where they have to look perfect after gym, where they have to be the vixen in the bedroom while maintaining a successful business career without experiencing a nervous breakdown. If most women believe this world exists, I’d like to tally them up and lock them in a room with the Etv News Channel playing for 48 hours. Maybe they will soon realize that their highlights and the latest sparkling Blackberry accessory is not a priority.

I know this blog sounds rather rude and vicious, I didn’t intend it to but it just makes me wonder what anyone can actually walk away with after reading these types of magazines? I must have read about two articles in the entire magazine and flipped through the rest. Nothing caught my attention except for the investigative feature on police brutality in South Africa, which was a good read. I do enjoy reading the other articles sometimes, for the laugh and for the f*ck of it.

So I ask again, Gadaffi’s capture by the rebels vs. 10 Things We Didn’t Know About Liposuction. It’s still a rhetorical question, to me that is.

You're paying off the Wedding reception in the divorce settlement

Weddings. I will say that as a chubby little red head, I never put much effort or thought into something that unbeknownst to me, could potentially cost in the 50 000 bracket and then become the only happy memory after a messy and draining divorce ten years down the line.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the unity of two people who believe they can stand the sight of each other until the day they have joint rooms in an old age home with nurses changing their bed sheets every hour. I just think I would do it differently, like I do in a general sense, with the one who happens to be my bingo partner at the Nerina old age home.

I am watching the movie Bride Wars. One of those typical chick flicks that glamorizes everything, giving women total unrealistic expectations about their big day and maxing their fiancé’s credit card for a wedding that costs more than his annual income. Of course Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway are two very successful business women, with very successful husbands, living in New York city and the word ‘budget’ doesn’t exist in their wedding ventures. That’s total reality right there.

So, watching how painfully crucial a wedding day is to most women, I ask myself: Is there something wrong with me? I don’t want a huge white wedding with a band that caused me to take out a small loan and family members I may or may not know, attending. Neither do I want the stress of family politics, since the parents are divorced….awkward. “Dad, I’ve reserved a separate section for you and your side of the family” – to avoid my parents paths actually crossing at any stage, which is highly unlikely. Knowing my luck, the seating will probably have a glitch in it and my mother could be finding herself sitting directly opposite her ex-mother in law during dinner. Enough to cause me extreme heart palpitations and one of my bridesmaids finding me passed out in the toilet cubicle, with my white dress over my head, after drinking nearly half of the cash bar before the speeches and embarrassing not only myself, but my husband. 

Besides the family politics, I don’t think I could face trying to organise a group of women a.k.a my bridal party, if you can imagine politics at a wedding reception, imagine the politics bestowed on me when I fatefully choose the best dress for one girl and the others don’t understand why. I would rather have my sister as my Maid of Honour and the odd little one as a bridesmaid to add cuteness to the aisle stroll. Something like that. As I have said, I haven’t put much thought into it, really. 

I never actually thought I would get married, considering the previous encounters I have had and their heavy influence on me to disregard and lose complete faith in a life-time commitment. But, since I am with someone who has finally changed my thought processes, I guess it’s changed. We were talking about weddings recently, casually. Don’t stress, we aren’t planning to tie ourselves down anytime soon. We both agree that we don’t want to spend thousands and thousands of rands on a wedding. Instead, we’d rather have a really small and inexpensive ceremony with a party afterwards, spending more time and money on the actual honeymoon, since this is about the two of us in the end, am I not right? Instead of sitting a week after the wedding with bills we have to pay instalments on for the next year, I would rather go somewhere overseas that we both want to visit and spend more time and money together, alone. A bit of an anti-climax when you have the credit card company phoning you to ask why you haven’t paid an instalment on the big purchase you made at the florist six months ago. 

And as most people know, I wouldn’t have the typical traditional wedding anyway. Ask anyone who knows me well enough: A black wedding dress, skull cutlery and a tattooed wedding ring. (The wedding ring idea yeah, not the rest of it. Close enough).  

My perfect idea would be to get married on the beach, with my closest family and friends, cocktails in tow and then heading out for a huge party, with no set menu and ridiculously expensive wedding cake. Instead, I’d like to plan a two week excursion with my new husband to go to Thailand. Sounds good to me. 

Maybe I will change one day, maybe I will max that credit card out and sit with endless bills that I and my husband struggle to pay off or maybe I’ll go the simple route and end up on some tropical beach having honeymoon sex in a vacant area, thinking that I couldn’t have done it any better. I believe that weddings are taken out of context nowadays and all the focus is on how great it should turn out instead of just getting married and then enjoying the time afterwards, stress free and relaxed with the person you chose to tie yourself too. If divorce ever does come into play down the road, you’ll still remember the tropical holiday and not wonder what you could have spent that 30 000 you forked out for the wedding, on instead. Some food for some thought.

Til Death Do Us Part - I'll Keep My Eye On You From Heaven

When being with someone, you’re supposed to feel that no one else out there will ever reach the level of ecstasy they provide you with. You shouldn’t even have to fight for them, nor them fight for you because anything that can potentially get in the way is out of the question from the start and you don’t even consider having to get those defences ready and armed. Something I am unused to.

Everything crosses your mind, from marriage to kids, careers and even death. If you can see yourself being with that person for the rest of your life, without any doubts popping up like speech bubbles, you know you have every right to be with that person.

Unfortunately, along with all these happy thoughts come the ones that are forced into your reality and you have to prepare yourself in case. What if my entire happiness ends by a phone call; death? I know this isn’t something everyone wants to particularly hear, but reality is reality and tragically many people in love have had to deal with it. Look at Romeo and Juliet – they killed each other figuratively and ended it literally. Heathcliffe from Wuthering Heights; he lost his soul mate to another man and she ended up making her way back to him in the form of dying in his arms in the rain, leaving him with the pain of knowing that she never really left him, she was only departing in her last moments. He let himself die and he didn’t rest until he took his own life, colour and happiness instantly appearing in the last scene.

Nothing has touched me more than Wuthering Heights. The connection two people can have, in it’s own way can be tragic. That, to me is romance. Not these silly chick flicks where the high school nerd finally ends up with the pop, that’s just alcohol-induced romance where he looked good at a frat party and luckily for him, he obviously had the moves in bed to keep her interest. Happily ever after for those people. To me, true romance shouldn’t involve a happy ending. One of the two is going to die one day, it is inevitable and the fact that these two people are willing to spend the rest of their lives together until tragedy strikes, is true romance. They both know they will be taken away from each other at some stage.

Your perception of these things change as soon as you find someone you don’t ever want to lose. In my previous relationships I never made the most of what we had together because they never made me feel the way I do today. Today I want to make the most of every moment leading up to the point where I or he has to go on without the other. I’d be happy to just sit and stare at him all day or stay up all night because I am too scared to lose another day with him.  

When someone’s partner dies, you wonder how it all works afterwards. I know this is going to sound so stupid, especially coming from Miss Cynic herself, but do you ever wonder if the one who has passed away ever stays with the other? Stays in a sense of being around them all the time, whether they know it or not. I don’t know if I believe in heaven and I don’t really know where we go after we die, but it makes me wonder if it’s possible to be a part of that other person even after death? You are, through their mourning and longing, but I mean in a spiritual sense? (Think Bruce Willis in the Sixth Sense; when he realizes he is dead after seeing his wife holding his wedding ring). I know that if I had to die today, I would make every effort possible to be able to be around Daniel, whether the gods, angels, demons let it happen or not. Either that, or I will irritate him in his dreams, every night. If I did have to die, I’d run the show from where ever I went afterwards, knowing my adamant and bossy personality. I suppose those are what guardian angels are for? I’ll retrench his and take over, make it a deal it wouldn’t refuse. A better salary and a better suite closer to God’s luxury one. I’d even play matchmaker from behind the scenes. I would want him to move on and meet someone else, except I would have a bigger playground to audition suitable candidates. I can imagine myself sitting with the other ‘angels’ in front of it all, like men do so tensely in front of the television when an important sports match is on. We’d take bets that they would get together and we would scream and shout if he ended up marrying her. That’s how I imagine it could be. I’d be his conscience and hopefully my voice will fill his head when he is faced with something he doesn’t know which way to approach. Nightmares as punishment for not listening to my ‘voice’ and dreams, letting him know I’m still there and proud of him. I’d have to do a casting for other angels when and if he ever had kids with this other women, appoint them to look after something I would have wanted to share with him had I still been around.  Running the show until he is on his own death bed and we can catch up over a cup of coffee from God’s expresso machine.

My heart sinks when I think of all of this being ripped away from me. I think I would pack up my shit the day after the funeral and I would just disappear. No one would know where I was going and they wouldn’t hear from me for a while. I would do a ‘Into the Wild’ mission, letting myself either die from hyperthermia or nature itself. I suppose that is why couples have children too. It’s insurance that they will have a piece of the other person if something was to happen to one of them. You always hear these stories of these couples who are truly meant for each other and the husband/boyfriend dies, a week later she finds out she is pregnant. To me, that in itself is a gift. Being able to see that other person in something you created, watching it grow up and make it’s own decisions and the fact that you know he/she, watching from where ever they are, would be proud of every step you took to keep your connection alive.

Although this is so soppy and probably puke material, these thoughts tend to cross your mind when you no longer have to face daily life by yourself. Having a best friend who naturally crosses your mind when anything happens is something to feel privileged about.  I physically miss him, if I can describe it in that way. Not in a horny sense, let’s leave that a closed discussion in this, but feel like I can actually feel him, I physically feel and miss him. He’s gradually become part of my thought process and while I am trying to decide how to structure a news story, his face is pinned up on the notice board in my mind, hanging above my ‘computer’.  I wake up with him on my mind, I go to sleep with him on my mind.  I ask myself what he would do if he was in this situation? WWDD? (Let’s leave Jesus out of this for a minute). When I go out with friends, I imagine what it would be like to look over at the bar and see him smiling at me, what would he do if he was with me when some other guy wouldn’t leave me alone? Obsessed might be a way to describe it, but I like to think of it as something a little less more dodgy . Being in love is practically being obsessed with someone else who compliments you and knows what you are going to say before you’ve even said it, cheesily completing each other’s sentences. 95 days until I won’t really have to say anything to anyone else in person because he will say it for me, until I get to wake up next to him every morning, until I’ll be willing to just stare at him and not expect him to even notice that I am in the same room. The count down to one day left is what’s pulling me through a hectic college schedule and not having my partner in crime with me on most occasions. Getting to see him on my laptop screen every night makes my day and after a stiff drink, I’m relaxed like a dead limb. Getting a message from him makes my heart fly like a roundhouse-kick. Hearing him say “I love you baby” makes my stomach go crazy like a manic preacher. He is my biggest fan. I love you babe, I know you’ll read this, since you are probably the only one who religiously follows my blogs. You're my homie and no one will swagger like us ;)