Random outpouring of my thoughts

How is it that stuff all falls apart at once?

And no, I'm not moaning about my family and work stuff this time. I mean actual things, like our bathroom towel rail that's literally fallen to pieces this month (the various bits are lying on the bathroom floor and not even our best glue will keep them together anymore). And the lid of our kitchen pot, which I've had since varsity. It fits both my frying pan and my big cooking pot, but the handle has now disintegrated, so it will have to be replaced. We've also had a whole bunch of drinking glasses and mugs give up the ghost this month, as well as my old hairdrier that TSC uses to start the fire quickly when we braai (ok, that last one didn't really just stop working - he left it outside in the rain. Chop). My laptop is definitely on its way out and takes almost 10 minutes to open or close a window and I see that the guest room duvet cover has also come completely undone at the seams (which thankfully I can fix quite easily).

In literature there's a term known as "pathetic fallacy", which basically means ascribing human emotions to inanimate objects or nature (for example, "the menacing clouds" or the "friendly sunflowers"). It's like how, in movies or novels, bad things always happen on dark and stormy nights. The weather and nature seem to signify the human experience.

Well, right now I feel like my house and everything in it signifies my state of mind... falling apart and all over the show!

See, this is the trouble with working at home, alone - too much time for navel gazing and pseudo-philosophical nonsensical thinking. Thankfully, the exterior world barges in rudely at times. Yesterday, this happened in the form of a surprise visit from Coach and a friend of his.

The two lucky boys are leaving on Friday for four and half months of seeing the USA. They're going to camp out in Yellowstone Park and the Grand Canyon, see the Mardis Gras in St. Louis, visit Boston, New York and Miami and basically have the holiday of a lifetime as they make their way around the country.

Can anyone say ever-so-slightly-envious?

I am desperate to travel. In fact, ever since our names were signed on the dotted line and the house became our house (just over two years ago), I have had itchy feet. Putting down roots in Joburg was a big step for me and it still scares me sometimes. Don't get me wrong - I love, love, LOVE our house, but I also dream of seeing the world and sometimes just winging it for a bit.

I'd love to see Greece, Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Canada, Kenya, Vietnam... everywhere, pretty much.

I've been fortunate to travel quite a bit so far (USA, Bosnia, Croatia, France, England, Ireland, Australia, Mauritius, some of the Caribbean islands and Zanzibar) and I've loved all the places I've been. But I was very young when I visited some of them and would like to travel more as an adult and with TSC to discover things together.

It's not possible to go overseas now. We just can't afford it. But we have friends going to Namibia this year who've offered us free accommodation and another friend in Zimbabwe who's setting up his own bush camp. If time and finances allow it, maybe we'll be able to take one of them up on the offer and see a bit of our own exotic and beautiful continent.

But we'll see. Who knows what will happen? Not me, that's for sure. Speaking of which...

TSC has a job interview tomorrow. If you're that way inclined, please keep him in your prayers.

The actual hitting of me (teen love story, part two)

In yesterday's post, I started telling you the long and probably boring story of Coach - the first guy I fell head-over-heels for. I'm writing this becuase I've been thinking over my realisation for awhile and I need to have it written down. So, whether you are interested or not, here's the rest of the story:

When I was in grade 11, I remember telling Coach about the guy I was planning to invite to my grade 11 dance (a fellow redhead who didn't last long as a boyfriend because people kept thinking we were brother and sister - eww!).

As a ballroom and Latin champ, Coach got invited to a lot of dances. He was heading off to a Matric dance (the South African version of a prom) at a rival school to mine that week. He said that particular school held the best dances. I asked if he'd ever been to one of the dances at my school and he said no. I told him that OUR dances were INFINITELY better and informed him that he would be coming to my Matric dance the following year. He didn't have a choice.

One year later, I hadn't forgotten about my promise. But... despite my unwavering dedication to Coach, I was getting a bit frustrated with the fact that even though everyone agreed that he had feelings for me too, he hadn't done anything about it (he has always been rubbish with girls). I had started to attend a small group from my church and there was a guy in the group who had piqued my interest. Let's call him Brian (because that was his middle name).

Brian was the polar opposite of Coach... Shy, artistic and in no way a sportsman. We had friends in common and we saw each other regularly. He had a quirky sense of humour and was so gentle with me (unlike Coach, who would just pick me up and throw me over his shoulder if he felt like it). I decided I really, really liked Brian. And when he invited me to his Matric dance, it confirmed that the feeling was mutual. In our oh-so-high-school-way, we tentatively started to date.

But I had already invited Coach to my Matric dance, and I explained this to Brian. He seemed to be ok with it - he was really laid back. I called Coach to remind him of the fact that he was my dance partner and then gushed about Brian for ages. Coach was less chatty than usual. Eventually he managed to gruffly interrupt me and say, "By the way, I hope you know that you're MY Matric dance partner too?"

I hadn't known, actually. He'd never mentioned it before.

As it was, it turned out that his dance was the night after mine. I was thrilled to be invited (because the more dances you went to, the more your pathetic high-school status improved) and set about organising dress number three. Then Tim (his real name), a very odd friend of mine, invited me to his college dance and I was over the moon. Four dances - I was no longer just a teenage dirtbag. Of course, it turned out that Tim's dance was the night after Brian's dance, just to make life that much more complicated.

All the dances were great fun, although I discovered that Brian didn't dance. He also sulked about the fact that I was going to dances with other guys. I had an absolute blast at my dance and Coach's, despite comments from all our teachers about the fact that we'd picked the most unsuitable partner possible in terms of height.

After the spate of dances, Brian and I continued to date and I honestly thought I was over Coach, although we were still great friends. We talked each other through our final exams and then parted ways after high school - me to do a gap year in Pretoria with a church and him to study sports management (what else!).

Brian and I dated long distance for a year before I realised that he wasn't right for me. By that time I'd met TSC and we'd been through the I hate you / you're not so bad / let's be friends cycle and were best buddies. Coach and I had kept in touch but weren't close anymore.

TSC and I eventually started dating (long-distance) when I headed to Cape Town to study. Coach and I were at a stage where we only talked once every few months. Then TSC moved down to Cape Town and things got serious between us.

I had always stuck to my routine of going on camp for the holidays, although by this stage was a leader. Coach hadn't come on camp for awhile, but we'd always said we'd do one last one together.

And we did. And I discovered that even though I was madly in love with TSC, I still found my heart speeding up when Coach was near. I still got that tingly feeling when he touched my arm or spoke my name (he had nickname for me that only he could get away with). Our friendship returned to the way it had always been. He was actually dating his first girlfriend by this time, but we spent more time together that camp than they did, laughing and arguing for hours again.

I saw him a few times after that and decided that I would need to accept that I would never really be able to totally get over him.

The last time I spoke to him, it was to invite him to my wedding. He didn't come. I was a bit hurt, but secretly quite relieved.

TSC and I were incredibly happy together (still are). Coach called me to say he was off to spend a year overseas. I wished him well. I had no way of contacting him (I'm not on FaceBook) and I wasn't that interested, to be honest.

After about a year, I remembering wondering if he was back yet. And then forgetting about it.

Until he called me last week. And then it hit me like a car door in the soft part of a shin...
There were no butterflies...
There was no giddy headrush...
There was no tingly feeling at the sound of his voice...

Just happiness to talk to an old friend.

We chatted for over an hour, catching up on what he was up to and how our lives had changed. I jabbered about TSC and our cats and our house, and he chattered away about his overseas trip and his new job. We shared a few laughs and memories and it was great. And then we hung up.

And this overwhelming peace settled over me that I married the best person I possibly could whom I love with every cell in my body (go ahead and gag - it's true) and that Coach and I were never meant for each other.

We've both grown up. We've both changed. And while I look forward to enjoying my great friendship with him, I know that we'll never be as close as we were and that there is no romantic "what if" floating between us.

Things are as they were meant to be. For each of us. And it's awesome to know that.

And then it hit me...

...Like a car door in the soft part of a shin...

What am I on about? Let me back track slightly.

Just over a week ago I got a surprise phone call from an old friend. Let's call him Coach (he's been obsessed with basketball for as long as I've known him and has played and coached with numerous teams).

Coach was the first guy I ever really, REALLY fell for. I met him on a camp I went on at the beginning of grade 10, so I was 15. When we met, we couldn't stand each other (the same thing with TSC... see a pattern here?) and spent the week trying to avoid each other.

A few months later we bumped into each other again (literally - I was walking down a flight of stairs and he was running up them). We chatted for maybe five minutes and I thought to myself, "He's not SO bad."

It turned out that we had a mutual friend in common and we saw each other a few more times. By the time we went on our second camp, we were friends. By the end of that camp, we were inseparable.

Now if you've met me, you'll know that I am really small. I think I just, just make the 5 foot mark. Coach, on the other hand, is a typical basketball player - 6.4 foot tall. So we made an odd pair. Especially seeing I was going through a phase of collecting odd hats. At any given time, you might find the two of us strolling around the camp, me craning my head to talk to him and him bending over to hear me, both of us wearing some bizarre head piece (his favourite that he liked to steal from me was a luminous pink, fuzzy beanie that made his head look like a tea cosy. My favourite was a rainbow cap with a propellar on top of it).

It was definitely a sight that would make you giggle. Or maybe call the shrinks in!

We had a great friendship going and would argue for hours at a time about inane things like whose brother was most annoying and what breed of dog made for the best pet. But I never felt anything romantically for him. Until...

My school was invited to a huge social dance event at another school and so was his. It was an attempt by the teachers to keep us out of the clubs while we were underage and was supposed to be a club atmosphere without the booze and drugs. I figured it might be lame, but seeing he would be there, I promised I'd go.

It was actually pretty cool - there were people from about eight different schools there and there was a great vibe. Coach is a champion ballroom and Latin dancer (you can actually tell if you watch him play basketball - he's surprisingly graceful for someone so gangly) and makes anyone look brilliant on the dance floor, even someone half his height!

We were all dancing in a group when Coach came and just picked me up and plonked me on one of the sort of dance box / mini stage thingeys scattered around the huge marquee. I think he did it so that I'd be his height and he could talk to me, but the music was so loud that he had to come in really close. His adolescent cheek touched my adolescent cheek and I got a whiff of his adolescent aftershave. And that was it - I was smitten.

This took me completely by surprise. So much so that I jumped off the mini stage thingey and hid out in the bathroom stall for half an hour to try and wrap my head around it. A friend came in and called out, "T... you ok?"

"No. I think I like Coach."

"Well duh...."

Yes, this is also the dominant pattern in my life - everyone has always known about any crush I've had before I have even an inkling of what's going on. Not very self-aware, I'm afraid.

After my little discovery, I did what any teenage girl would do - agonised for months about whether he had any feeling for me.

Unlike most of my teenage infatuations, this one didn't pass within a few weeks. In fact, it went on for years. Boyfriends came and went, but Coach remained. As a friend and as some vague unattainable yet incredibly attractive idea of what I wanted in a guy. It was him I would phone the night before a science test to procrastinate and him I'd call in tears to talk me through my break-up speech that I needed to deliver to some poor sod. In fact, it was him I'd compare all the other poor sods to and find them wanting.

There was only one break in this cycle of puppy love. But you'll have to wait till tomorrow if you're interested in reading about that.

And about what hit me like a car door in the shin. Seeing that, after all, was supposedly the point of this rambling post.