That time of year again....

There’s no doubt about it... if Jozi is the pulse of the country and Cape Town the soul... Durban is officially the butthole of South Africa.

If anyone who reads this hails from Durbs, I apologise. Not for calling your home a butthole, but for the fact that you have to live in it.

I’ve just returned from a working weekend in this city and returning home was like arriving in nirvana.

I flew in to Durban at 08h00 on Saturday morning and by 08h05 I was suicidal. My hair had gone all kinky, my skin felt clammy, the air was so thick with humidity I felt like I had to chew and swallow each time I took a breath.

But without a doubt, the highlight of my time there had to be Saturday night. I was there with work colleague for the annual Tourism Indaba, which always features a beach party on the first night. A party on what is called ‘New Beach’ on Durban’s beachfront. Now if any of you have any experience with Durban’s beach front – you will know that this place is a cesspool of all that is wrong and evil in this world. C and I were stuck in bumper to bumper traffic for about 45 minutes – at 9pm at night, witnessing about three fights breaking out on the streets around us.

After searching for a parking space for a further 30 minutes, we eventually turned up a dark side street, where we found an empty parking lot. As we pulled in, we saw a man running after another man waving a stick at him. As I climbed out of the car (which contained two laptops, two wallets and two cameras), a lady watching the two men having a go at each other remarked “Oh yes, that’s the guy who always breaks into cars”. By the time we reached the beach, we had already seen another two fights as drunken men poured out of the shebeens around us. So unbelievably dodgy!

What I also don’t understand about this city – is the fact that most roads seem to have about six lanes – which will suddenly reduce to two – and then back to six, almost as if it was designed the sole intention of chaos as much traffic mayhem as possible. I also noticed that Durban is essentially one giant parking lot – with busses stopping in the middle lane, in the middle of an intersection, in the CBD, in front of traffic police, to offload and load up on passengers.

But I’ve made it out in one piece and have vowed to do whatever I can to speed up construction on Cape Town’s convention centre so that Indaba can be moved out of the butthole permanently.

Blogging chickitas - take note!

Phillygirl is ready to launch bloggirls - She had the fab idea of a monthly meet up for girl-bloggers - read more on this site...

27... hectic.

Yikes... another year older.

How on earth did that happen so quickly?? And most concerning of all... the dreaded ‘30’ is moving ever closer. I only have another two birthdays of twentiness before I'm over the hill.

Despite this, the birthday has been fab. It began with coffee and presents in bed from FD – followed by him cooking me breakfast. Got into my car to go to work and saw two envelopes stuffed under my windscreen wiper – cards from my parents who I’ll be seeing tonight for dinner. Found my desk at work heavily adorned with ‘Happy Birthday’ signs and birthday confetti. Got a pressie from some folks in the office, as well as an assortment of wicked baked goods.
But other than that, I’m keeping it a fairly sedate one, celebrating only with dinner tonight with the folks, FD, Aye and Kay once she arrives back from Cape Town.

So anyway... back to the point... another year older – and what has changed?
A LOT!

This time last year I was partying like a mad thing, still a smoker, planning a snowboarding trip to Tiffindell and about to embark on a silly fling with ol’ DJ – the man of zero self respect. I was pretty much perpetually swept up in a buzz of excitement and energy. On the other hand, I was partially longing for the security of a ‘significant other’ in my life and trying to fill the gap with an over reliance on my friends.

Now I’m a non-smoker (8 and ½ months and going strong), I’m hardly partying at all and not missing it too much to be honest. Unfortunately, along with that comes a certain amount of distance from beloved friends. As my dearest Aye and Kay prepare to leave SA indefinitely, I’m starting to realise the gaping hole that’s going to be left after they jet off. I wish I was planning to head off to Tiffindell in the next month or two, but I’ll survive this as FD and I are starting to look into a mega European snowboarding trip in December. And I don’t need to go into the relationship change that’s happened over the past year... I think I drone on quite enough about FD on this blog, so I’ll spare ya this time.

Things are going well... actually, they’re going fantastically well in all arenas. Despite this, I’m feeling a little bit unsettled. I feel like something needs to change. I was discussing this with Aye last night over drinks, and she says it’s not strange at all – even though things are going well, they’re almost too stable, and I’m craving a change so that I can grow. I think she’s probably right. On one hand I feel like a fool for craving the change instead of focusing on the things I’m being blessed with – but I just can’t help it. I’m craving that buzz... I need to head off into the unknown for a while – but there’s no doubt I want FD alongside me for the ride.

I need to do some serious thinking. And something has to change.

A week after the chaos...

First of all – thanks to everyone for the comments. Your words definitely help put things into perspective and helped me make out the downward spiral I was about to leap into.

I’m happy to report that both FD and I have recovered from the events that unfolded last week. As clichéd as it sounds, I’ve taken a lot away from the drama of last Friday. I’ve realised that one of the most beautiful things about our relationship is that we don’t ever try and control each other – so to try and stop FD from doing something he really wants to do can only be counterproductive. My only reason for ever trying to stop him from doing these wild things was concern for his safety – which boils down to me not ever wanting to imagine him not being in my life. Stopping him from embarking on all the mad adventures his heart longs for is a sure fire way of ensuring that one day him and I will part ways. Of all the vices a man can have – FDs ‘wanderlust’ as Lopz so aptly described it, is hardly a problem at all.

Moving on!!

I can’t believe how many young South Africans are flocking out of the country all of a sudden! In the past few weeks, I’ve had to digest the news that Kay, Aye and BMXer are all leaving the country in the near future. BMXer phoned me en route to the airport to say that he’s decided to move to Scotland, Aye is off to Germany after a series of several dramatic twists and turns in her life and Kay decided a few weeks ago that she’s in need of a new and environment and some adventure and is heading off to do the London thing.

South Africa has certainly had it’s fair share of problems in the past few months – with some losing a little hope and faith in the powers that be – but I don’t think this has much to do with everyone’s decision to leave all of a sudden. I think it’s got a lot more to do with the weird stage of our lives my friends and I are entering into. Suddenly partying like a mad thing is only fun once in a while, friends are beginning to settle down around us and our jobs are no longer just jobs, they’re potential careers. The big 3 0 is approaching rapidly and we’re all feeling a little unnerved.

Do we like the direction we’re headed? Sadly, I think the answer for most is no. And I’m no exception. Certain aspects of my life are exactly as I want them to be – but others are severely lacking. Going overseas and heading into a completely new and fresh environment means that all that can be changed... but can the same be done while staying on home ground? I think it can happen, but it’s a lot harder as old routine makes it easy for us to play out the same day over and over.

I’m sensing big changes are on the horizon... and I’m quite excited to see exactly how it’s all going to play out!

First fights

FD and I had our first fight on Friday night.

Although I know I should be impressed with the fact that we managed to avoid conflict for six whole months, a part of me honestly believed that we would escape ever having to argue about anything.

It was friggen awful – the whole thing triggered by FD’s decision to buy a motorbike on Friday afternoon and ended up with FD making some pretty hurtful statements about how he feels that he’s in a lose/lose situation – because he feels he needs to choose between navigating mountain tops and being with me. It was confusing, upsetting and enraging all at once and left both of us feeling completely overwhelmed and disorientated.

FD was up most of the night and when I woke up in the morning, I found him in a complete state, devastated about having upset me.

Even though we had ‘sort of’ resolved issues by Saturday morning, I felt pretty out of it the whole weekend, and still feel the same way today. I’m suddenly feeling a lot less safe and secure, and internally questioning FD’s headspace constantly – trying to feel out what he’s thinking without actually asking him.

It’s completely new territory and I don’t have a clue how to handle it. I’m desperate for things to be exactly as they were before.

I can’t imagine my life without him in it, and as much as he’s done to try and reassure me that he wasn’t considering walking away from our relationship, I’m finding it difficult to completely believe him.

What it boils down to at the end of the day, is that I was carrying on in my happy little bubble, almost oblivious that FD was spending as much time as he was agonising over the fact that he isn’t off conquering and exploring untamed territories. I had some idea that he was a little worried about these things, but I asked him about it once, and his response was that he can’t handle being apart from me for a day – so how would he ever be able to go off exploring for months at a time. And I believed it and carried on – but it wasn’t the end of those thoughts for him.

So where do I go to from here? Knowing that there’s a chance that FD’s actually secretly desperately unhappy but not vocalising any of it? Can I just carry on imagining our lives together forever, while he may secretly be feeling the opposite?

I’m hoping that over the next few days all these insecure feelings will disappear...

I love you...but...

So if you love someone – you should never try and change them. I’ve always been a big believer in this... trying to change someone you love calls into question whether you actually love them at all.

But I’m starting to find that it’s a little difficult to put into practice.

As I’ve voiced fairly excessively, I’m head over heels for FD. One of the reasons I’m nuts about him is his wild and adventurous ways. I’ve got my own Camel man and it’s quite fabulous. But he has this undeniably need to do incredibly crazy things. While the rest of the world scuba dives, FD free dives; while the rest of the world swims in rock pools, he’s diving head first off the bridge above it and while the rest of the world skydives, FD base jumps (not yet, but definitely on the cards).

He has huge dreams about summiting the world’s highest peaks – including one called Annapurna – where 1 out 3 mountaineers die in the process.

All of this is so much a part of him... but also leaves me feeling so unsettled – where does a little Sandton chick fit in with all of this?

On one hand it’s made me question my priorities, my attachments, all the things that I’ve thought were so important in my life and I’ve realised I don’t need most of it to be happy. But having said that – there’s no way I’ll be standing next to FD as he digs his snow cave for the night as we climb the world’s highest mountains. I’ll climb up a rock face at Hartebeespoort Dam once a week and I’ll even enjoy it, but that’s quite a different thing.

So where do we meet? I can’t change him, and he can’t change me... but will this eventually lead to one of us resenting the other as we compromise on what we want? I really hope not.

It's been a while...

Oops.I’ve been quiet. This is not on account of a cleaning/lasagne cooking/jersey knitting domestification spree – as you might have guessed from the previous post. It’s really just on account of not being able to face a computer screen at the end a spate of overworkedness. (Apparently since I’ve returned I’ve begun to enjoy making up words).

But other than the craziness of the working day – life has been good.Here’s what’s happened in the past two months:

• I went to Mauritius for a holiday with FD. The place is heaven on earth. I could live there. I don’t usually wonder what it would be like to live in a country I visit, but this time we were staying in FD’s cousin’s house – so it made me imagine what it would be like to call Mauritius home. We met quite a few South Africans that live in the area. I’ve never felt so insanely jealous over some else’s lifestyle, as I felt then.
• I’ve climbed two 17s... only climbers aka Miss M will appreciate this fact, but I’m pretty proud of it. I’ve also blown my budget on climbing shoes and a harness. But they are both super flash and I’m loving them. (Even though the shoes make my feet orange)
• I’ve got someone reporting to me at work, for the first time ever. I don’t know that I’m boss material.
• I went to Coke Fest... ugh... hated it. Left after Good Charlotte. Of course everyone I know says the concert only got good after that point, but I don’t believe them.
• I’ve begun planning a trip to Namibia – woohoo!
• I’m pretty keen to move to Cape Town. FD and I have set a deadline of two years to make the move.
• I’m still insanely-besottedly-head-over-heels-can’t-see-straight-crazy-in-love with FD.
  

So apparently I haven’t been up to much at all! Anyways – this was just a quick catch up post to say...

I’m back!