Embracing Me

36 hours and 4 flights later... I returned to South Africa one week ago today. 

I've really gone through the motions here.

I started out the travels with pig slit eyes that I feared would make me unrecognisable to my passport photo. I'll put it bluntly. I got dumped. 

Dumped. By the man I truly thought was the love of my life. The man I gave up everything more. Moved to Australia for. Spent my life savings on. At first I really believed we would be OK. I thought we'd take a bit of a break and both do some of our own personal healing and then I'd come back home to him... to our beautiful flat and start fresh. How stupid of me. 

A few days in and he'd cancelled my gym membership, packed all my shit into boxes ready to ship across the globe. I received an email basically saying I need to accept the fact that we are over. 

As brutal as it was - I can never be angry with him. I know I messed up. I pushed so hard for things we weren't ready for... marriage, kids, animals etc... I was struggling in Australia because I was finding it so hard to find meaningful friendships of my own and his friends never accepted me. They would never give me the chance to show them the real, happy, fun me... they only ever saw the me that has intense anxiety and insecurity issues. They never knew the true me and that hurts so much because I am such a good person with a huge heart.

I completely freaked out when M told me he wouldn't move forward with me unless we had his friends blessings..... and I knew I wouldn't get that. So the downward spiral began.... I tried reaching out to the girls and putting myself out there... but I was ignored at first then received pretty nasty responses from some of them basically saying I am just not their type of person... that they would be civil with me in a group but that their friendships with the other girls are separate. 

This gutted me... I didn't feel good enough. I didn't understand... I love the same kind of things as them. I love craft markets, coffee shops, creative activities, plants... I truly just felt I was never given the opportunity to show them that side of me. 

Living a life with social anxiety is awful... I get nervous, sweaty palmed, clam up and feel WEIRD around people I don't know.... it's so hard to live that way and it's something I am working on. I just don't get it - those who really know me KNOW how outgoing and fun I am... I am not anxious around them... nor am I anxious around people I meet myself... but it's something about feeling judged when it comes to my (ex) partners friends that gets in my head too much. I don't know why I can't just be myself. It feels so pressurizing and I feel like I'm just not good enough. In South Africa I have the big personality amongst my friends but when other big personalities come in it makes me crawl inside of myself like a turtle into its shell. Those that know me wouldn't recognise who I become when I am intimidated like that. I wish I could fix it... and I'm trying to. It's just hard and now the man I truly believed was my happily ever after has tossed me out.. given up on me.

Being back in South Africa is weird because I'm instantly just me again.... besides the emotional breakdowns at the most random of times. I cried within the first 10 seconds of Mary fekking Poppins. I burst into floods of tears in the middle of the grocery store when I was trying to find a new face wash and my dad wasn't quite sure how to handle it. He asked me what was wrong and I just sobbed, 'It's just not the same!' 

Frankly.... I have been a blubbering mess for 7 days. 

It completely mindfucks me that you can be the happiest you've ever been, thinking of the rest of your life with a person and just a few days later you have nothing and no one and are in the darkest place you've ever been. 

I've lost everything... I'd do anything to turn back the clock and just appreciate the happy moments again just one last time. 

So originally my plan was to come back home, NOT wallow in self-pity, transform my mindset into a positive one and HEAL so I could go back to Australia and make everything right. 

However... when it became apparent that I was not welcome back into the arms of my former lover or past border control in Australia I fell to pieces. 

Then.... I realised it's OK to be heartbroken and cry right now... but that this is now my time for ME. I need to heal and release a lot of pain from my past. I want to start living in the moment and have gratitude for the present moment instead of always focusing on the future. Truthfully, I was obsessed. I have always been a control-freak. A planner. I need to know where I'm going in life... so to be so lost right now has knocked me completely off-kilter but that's exactly what I need. 

I fresh perspective. I need to let go and stop trying to figure out the rest of my life. I need to start appreciating just the current hour I'm living in (6am).

So this is it... this is the start of my journey. 

Before I sign off - I wanted to share a funny story that has absolutely nothing to do with anything but it made me laugh and I want to start finding the humor in every moment now...

So I almost thought I'd won the jackpot for the easiest and most comfortable flights EVER on the way back to South Africa. I usually always get wedged in between obese, snoring, smelly people or hounded by a random American who I wake up to touching my leg beneath the blankets! But this time I had an entire row of seats to myself so I could sprawl out.. and the amazing aircrew doted on me hand and foot (potentially due to the fact that I looked like someone had just died....). 

Alas on the last stretch of the journey I was seated next to a giant African man who JUST as I'd dozed off whacked me on the arm and asked me if tornado's are snakes.

He. Asked. Me. If. Tornado's. Were. SNAKES. 

Yes you read that correctly.

He started telling me how in his village they get these black winds that destroy their homes and he told me those black winds are actually snakes and he wondered if tornado's were the same thing.... I mean... really????

Bleary eyed I tried to explain to him that tornados are a natural disaster formed by 2 different temperatures meeting or some crap because SOMEHOW I managed to retain that information from my sporadic school days... 

Apart from that I have been spending quality time with my brother, making podcast episodes and booktube videos which is something I always loved to do but I lost that passion in Australia because no one there really quite understood it. But I am back. I'm going to start doing what I love again. Even if other people think it's weird. 

It's not. It's me. I'm embracing that now.