Ode to a brilliant piece of machinery

Ok - Its been a busy few weeks....

My poor baby overheated (no - Im not talking about Eva the Ewe here). My darling Fiat which I have owned since my student days seems to have breathed her last breath. I got her in 2005 as an Honours Student at Wits and she has been with me ever since. She loyally got me to my lectures on time and even helped me get home after the many drinking sessions at Zoo Lake. Then when I started working she took me straight to the office – and then at lunch to Monte Casino to at least try and get me out of the rat race. She saw me through heartbreaks, good times, birthdays, funerals, S&M clubs and even my stint in London.

Im fully convinced that she sensed I was shopping around for a new set of wheels – and decided to act up. Having invested more money in her than I have on my drinking habit (which I can assure you is SIGNIFICANT!) I decided to go ahead and trade her in.....
I got to the dealership – with tears in my eyes – and rubbed her bonnet. I told her I was sorry, thanked her for all the memories and assured her that she would find a good home and someone who would understand her needs as well as I did – but also someone with the car smarts to actually make a tangible difference.

I will greatly miss her quirks. How I had to hit the left door speaker for the radio to come on. The central locking protocol that needed to be adhered to for her to actually lock (latching the passenger door 5 times, which then opened and closed all other doors, before finally having to lock each door manually).

She really was a beauty and I will forever be indebted to her for the guidance, reliability and counsel that she almost always provided me with.....

This one’s for you my darling.

(Yes - she even made it through being hit by a bus)

Love and Lust

Okay – so I don’t really know what to write today – So I have opted to ramble instead in light of some conversations that took place last night at the Married ones.

They just got back from a Valentines Weekend away – and being as awesome as they are – I was their collective Valentine! Trying to not take it as fittingly tragic that I my only Valentines were married, I took it for what it was – and incredible gesture (cupcakes sent to me at work) that made me feel very positive about my life. In any event – the evening started as it so often does – with gossip and grey’s – while we awaited the arrival of the hard at work husband.

He came home in a lighter mood than usual – and told me how happy he is to be married to who he is married to. He compared his feelings to the often irrationally inconceivable feelings of Shakespeare’s greatest lovers. For once it didn’t make me sad to hear such a dramatic declaration of love. It made me happy that two of my closest friends were able to find something so rare in each other. The rare aspect being that their feelings were not unrequited.

I harboured (or so I thought) the same intense feelings for someone who really did not care for me at all and I was often made to feel very silly indeed for thinking that I knew what love was. I know now that he was right. Even though he was such a big presence in my life – he never loved me. Not the way I needed. And so I think to have someone reciprocate those grand wild and insane feelings would be what it’s supposed to be like. Will it ever happen? I really don’t know. I think maybe it comes from getting older – but I have to accept that it may never happen – and I don’t say this in a defeated way – I just think that it’s more realistic. I’m pasting in some lyrics from a song I stumbled across on my way to work....And I think it’s really beautiful. And I can safely say I have felt this way before – the fact that it is well and truly over doesn’t take away from my feelings in the slightest – and the fact that I was capable of something great even though he wasn’t shouldn’t be taken away from me.

When the rain is blowing in your face

And the whole world is on your case

I would offer you a warm embrace

To make you feel my love

When the evening shadows and the stars appear

And there is no one to dry your tears

I could hold you for a million years

To make you feel my love

I know you haven't made your mind up yet

But I would never do you wrong

I've known it from the moment that we met

No doubt in my mind where you belong

I'd go hungry, I'd go blind for you

I'd go crawling down the aisle for you

There ain't nothing that I wouldn't do

To make you feel my love

The storms are raging on a rolling sea

Down the highway of regret

The winds of change are blowing wild and free

But you ain't seen nothing like me yet

There ain't nothing that I wouldn't do

Go to the ends of the earth for you

Make you happy, make your dreams come true

To make you feel my love

And now to lighten the mood – I paste an image of what I think these feelings look like visually.

Valentino

After having semi recovered from my earlier meltdown this morning (thanks for the support people) I now feel ready to go into a topic I have been dreading.....Valentines Day.

The only Saint I am an ardent supporter of is Saint Amand (the patron saint of bartending, wine production, etcetera....) So it comes as no surprise that the prospect of living through another Saint Valentines Day alone, miserable and fat leaves me feeling less than warm and fuzzy inside.

People who know me know that I absolutely loathe and detest the festivities surrounding the 14th of February. Lovesick teenagers, candy hearts, confessions of unrequited love, attestations of love so powerful it can move mountains (Seriously - if you can do that you should have made your millions by now el bonehead)....Okay so I am cynical. But it bugs me. It bugs me that there are so many dumb oblivious people who have found what I have spent most of my adult life looking for. I mean, my favourite episode of Greys features Merediths overbearing mother shouting at her for being so ordinary by talking about happiness and love when she was raised to be extraordinary. 'Any idiot can fall in love, but not everyone can pick up a scalpel and save a life'....

Dramatic, I know, I try.

Anyhoo - this year is particularly tough for me - as while I normally abhor the thought of partaking in anything remotely Valentiney, last year my incredible flatmate vandalised my room with red helium balloons from floor to ceiling, confetti, candy, lovebug stuff and a card with words I will treasure forever. And the whole day I was spitting venom at everyone I caught holding hands on the tube. How she managed to do all that without me knowing I still dont know. She did all that to convert me - and for that I am forever grateful. But this year she off on this amazing bike ride from London to Australia, currently somewhere in Malaysia, and I miss her. She came into my life compeltely randomly and its days like that that make you realise how much of a united front your friends - your people - can represent.

Anyway - although its another year alone and another year older, Im also thinking that maybe, just maybe, its another year wiser.

Miserable

This is going to be a short one. I woke up at 7 - went to gym - thought I would leave at 8:45 so I would miss the traffic. I was in an excellent mood.

I spent one and a half hours travelling in seecond gear and got to work at 10:00.

I cried in the car....

I dont know if I can do this.

Four Cousins of Lonliness

Okay - so this was supposed to be post number 2 of 2 for the 1st of Feb - but I got busy.

Anyhoo - Sunday was spent socialising with some really cool friends (including the Married Ones) and lets name the other the 'Happy to be single and is holding out for Bryan Adams One', or HTBSAIHOFBAO....hmmm... Maybe just BA.

Anyway we went to lunch at BA's house - and as I got there first - We opened a 1.5 litre bottle of Four Cousins. Not wanting to gloat about how much of a connoisseur I am when it comes to the vino, I let the fact that this particular brand did not come in the highly sought after, cardboard box, slip.

After my 13th glass, my 9th cigarette and my 6th drunken text, we as a group, decided to watch some dvd's. The choices were Bryan Adams in Concert, Celine Dion in Concert and Westlife...you guessed it....in Concert. Simply ecstatic and euphoric at the choices I opted for the lesser of the three evils... Opening up the next bottle of Four Cousins. But alas, I was outvoted and on came the soppy emotional cutting, vomit inducing music.

In my state of drunken deliriousness I started to feel something that I havent in quite a while. Raw. And no - not raw to the core as I am sure some people were thinking. But exposed. I started to listen to the lyrics - and realized they came from someone. They were born out of someones experiences. Someone wrote these amazing lyrics cos they felt something so powerful they had to have a forum to release it. It just made me sad I guess. I miss that kind of big grand and incoceivable love. The kind of love that drives people to write some of the most moving and magnifcent sentiments of all time. And I know Celine Dion - is like - totally freaky - and Bryan Adams is like - totally scarecrow-y. But just listen to what they are saying in songs like 'If you ask me to' and 'Heaven'. It really is beautiful.

Needless to say I opened up the teeny tiny box in my head that stores the secret that I am alone - and have been for a long time - And I had to think about it. And then to be able to move on with my life and get out of bed and go to work - I had to close the box again. Its so much easier to float along the surface - completely oblivious to your feelings, fears, hopes and dreams. Its so much easier for me to ignore the simple fact that if I actually allowed myself the freedom to feel how I really feel, that the empty hollowness would be so earth shatteringly devastating that I would not be able to sit still. Not being able to eat, sleep, think or even go to the bathroom without the nagging sensation that something is eating my insides is something I am trying to steer well clear of.

Im over him. Well and Truly. But I'm not over being alone. And thats what hurts.