Dark, Light, Fight, Flight

Pounding head, racing heart
Anxiety, fear, continued concerns
What more will be expected of me?
Will I be able to get everything done properly?

Wracked sobs, swollen eyes
Exhaustion, sadness, depressive despair
Why is everything so damn hard?
When will something just go right for a change?

Black fog clouds my mind
The cataclysmic abyss calls
The deafening silence of the Void
Hails a ceremonious welcome

Video call, smiling faces
Happiness, joy, loving warmth
I wish I could slow time
Just to see the longer and talk some more

Hot bath, snowy bubbles
Calm, tender, relaxation
This feels like therapy
A reflective moment of me-time

Light filters into my thoughts
The awful shadows hide
The challenging heaviness lingers, clinging
But hope springs eternal

© Priscilla Anne Fick – Reflections of a Misfit

Grief is Sneaky

As many of you will know from my previous post, I am packing up The Cave after living there for almost ten years to move back to my folks because Dad is ill, although coping very well – something for which we’re all very grateful.

In the clean-up, I came across a postcard that Charlie sent me for my birthday one year, while he was sailing in Alaska. It read “Hello there, from the other side of the planet. Happy birthday. I hope you get a jam-filled cake.”  I read it, smiled, reminisced for a moment, and then placed it in a bag with other papers for recycling. After all, it’d been years since our paths split. He got married last year on October 8^th Shannon, the blonde American who swept him off his feet in just three days of meeting him. He felt bad, but ‘the heart wants what the heart wants’. When I happened upon the wedding photos on her Insta (it wasn’t difficult to track her down), I finally summoned the will to delete our entire chat history of almost two years, along with his number. I felt an inexplicable numbness, a tiny tinge of horror, and a pinch of relief. I don’t know what I was expecting, but the feelings I was having, weren’t ‘it’.

Keeping Going

I’ve been out of isolation for almost three weeks. I’m grateful to report that I am getting stronger every day. The insane, rib-cracking coughing is almost finally at an end, but I still get tired very quickly. An hour on the beach on Saturday ended with me having a three-hour sleep when I got home. Every night I’ve switched off my light around 21h00, which for me is early.

A few things have changed since I took ill:

My Lockdown in Review

I have been reading through some of my posts that kept me sane during the hard lockdown last year. If you want to take a gander at them, the first post is here.

Part of me can hardly believe it has already been as long as that, because those first three weeks feel like a distant memory. Sometimes I wonder if they indeed did happen, because looking back now, I realize that as tough as those first-three-weeks-now-more-than-three-hundred-and-sixty-five-days have been, I’ve adapted and grown.

Day 151: Remembering Honey

On Thursday last week I had a MS Teams meeting at 11 and I was out of data, along with money to buy, so Eliza offered that I work at her and Nathan’s place for the day. Their little boy, Lambert, aged almost four called for Eliza and I to ‘come look’ and eventually we got round to it. There on the ground in front of the sliding door lay a tiny bird, clearly stunned from flying into the sliding glass door.

Day 29: But, But, But, But…

I’m seldom one to weigh in on politics – who you vote for is your business, the same way who I voted for is mine. For the sake of this post, I will disclose that I have not ever voted for the ANC.

Day 28: Of Life and Lucy the Lettuce

It’s all fun and games until COVID-19 touches you on a more direct level. One of my friends that works away was tested as part of a mandatory reaction plan his employers had in place. He tested positive, despite showing no symptoms. He didn’t fall ill during his isolation period either. According to the doctors, he is one of the very few lucky ones. He is now waiting for this third set of swabs and blood tests to come back negative, while plans are trying to be made to get him back to SA. Not a day has gone by that I haven’t thought about him and his colleagues. It has me wondering though – how many of us may be infected, but are asymptomatic?

Days 14 & 15: We Were Past Halfway, Then We Weren’t Anymore, and Then it was Good Friday.

My previous pets control post has reached many people according to FB, but the stats on WordPress paint a different picture. I’m not complaining, merely stating a fact. Everyone that took part in the challenge – thank you! Your pets not only touched my heart, but those of many of my readers. Charles from work read the post, and sent this pic of his wannabee-lockdown-escapee, Tash, to me. I told him I’d include her in my next post, so here she is, in all her attempted-breakout glory.