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.

Is it just me...

...Or is the blogoverse very quiet lately?

Thanks for all the supportive comments on yesterday's post, btw. I love all you blogland friends so much! You rock, guys.

It has indeed been an eventful decade (there's lots I didn't put down there), but on the whole the latter part has been good. There have been rough times, but nowhere near half as rough as many people have experienced.

Yes, I had an eating disorder. So what? It's taught me a lot, as has battling with chemical depression and all that jazz. I am now in a place where I can understand those things and other related illnesses in others much better and be more empathetic. And I can appreciate food and my happy moments like I never could before.

I've been fortunate enough not to have abusive people in my life, to have a wonderful husband, family and friends, and to have a roof over my head and clothes on my back. I am now generally healthy and much more secure in my identity, and I sincerely believe that nothing is wasted in the economy of God - everything happens for a reason.

I guess what I'm trying to say is... there's nothing that special about my story and I'm not looking for sympathy. There are people in this world who are far more deserving - those who have been through tragedies that most of us could never begin to imagine.

If what has happened in my life can somehow speak to you, awesome. I've learnt that the more open about my issues I am, the less power they have over me, and I'm happy to talk about my dark times and answer any questions if it will bring light to someone else. In fact, sometimes you may just have to tell me to shut up. Yesterday's post was very selfish - it's part of my "talk it out" therapy. But it's my blog, k? Kidding.

Please understand that I'm not making light of eating disorders or mental illness. They are conditions that are misunderstood and too many sufferers have to deal with the stigma attached to them. And they are more common than you may think. Of the 80-something girls in my grade at high school, I know of 11 of us who were battling an eating disorder. Those are just the ones I know of (most of whom saw the same pathetic specialist shrink that I did).

If people take one thing away from my experiences I want it to be that it is possible to recover. It's amazing just how resilient people are, and I've watched friends from abusive homes flourish, those with serious mental disorders find happiness and balance and even seen how something as devastating as the loss of a sibling has brought perspective and renewed generosity along with the pain.

Shew... that was a much deeper post than I expected it to be. Those damn alter egos... I guess I'll have to end with something silly - the regular Friday funny. So here it is. Yay for C&H!

A timeline of Tamara

Po tagged me to do a timeline of my past 10 years, so here goes. It's likely to be an overshare, and probably boring to many of you (my life is really not very thrilling), so I apologise in advance...

1998: I was in grade 8 at a snobby all girls' private school in Durban, getting used to high school and discovering that boys weren't as gross as I'd previously thought.

1999: Grade nine and the first year I went on a Scripture Union Independent Schools (SUIS) camp in the holidays and decided I wanted to be a christian. I met people there that were to be my best friends for the next five years and some of whom I still keep in touch with today.

2000: I went on exchange to a school in Melbourne, Australia. I questioned my new-found faith, got drunk for the first time (on warm cheap white wine out of a box), went to my first formal dance, had my first kiss (in the middle of the dance floor in front of all the teachers. Cringe), had my handbag stolen with my passport, travellers cheques and house keys in it, watched a Grand Prix live and gave my first "we can still be friends" speech. When I got back home, I became bulimic for the first time to lose the weight I'd gained. I fell in love with a boy that I thought I loved unwaveringly for the next three years. Let's call him B-Ball, seeing he's a six foot three basketball player. You must see the absurdity in this, as I'm barely over 1.5m tall.

2001: My parents moved to Pretoria and I went into the boarding house at my school. I loved it and made friends that were like family. I joined a new church and got baptised, but in the shadows my eating disorder spiralled out of control and I was not eating a single meal that I didn't throw up. My school work suffered and I had almost constant blinding headaches and often experienced heart palpitations. I once passed out and hit my head on the bathroom sink, giving myself two black eyes that my friends teased my boyfriend about at our play rehearsals.

When I visited a doctor for a head cold and strep throat, she diagnosed me with chemical depression. I told my folks and they flew me home for the weekend where I admitted my bulimia in tears on the way back to the airport at the end of the weekend. My mother shocked my father and I by telling us she'd suffered from the disease during her varsity years, had tried to commit suicide twice and been admitted to a psychiatric ward for a short time. She had only stopped throwing up when she found out she was pregnant with me. It was one of the hardest conversations of my life - she'd kept that secret for 23 years. We both started seeing therapists and me a dietician too.

2002: I wrote exams, stopped throwing up, refused to see my crappy therapist ever again, struggled to adjust to anti-depressants, lost a very close friend who decided I no longer fit her image, briefly dated a guy seven years older than me, turned 18 and eventually matriculated from high school. The day after the last exam I pierced my nose and dyed my hair with fire-engine red streaks. B-Ball had become my best guy friend and I took him to my matric dance. I went to his the next evening. It was insane - before party, matric dance, after party, breakfast at the beach, sleep for four hours, drive to his home town, start the whole process again. I eventually figured out that I loved him more as a friend than I could ever as a boyfriend and that loving him had become a convenient habit, seeing he was useless with girls and I knew nothing would ever happen between us. So I started dating someone else, Bear (so-called coz he gave me the most gorgeous cuddly bear that I refused to part with for ages afterwards).

2003: I moved to Pretoria and did a gap year at a church along with 80-odd people from diverse backgrounds. I made friends from all over South Africa, as well as the US, New Zealand, Russia and my best friend in the world, Nic from Botswana. Bear and I struggled to keep our long distance relationship going, but he was my lifeline to the real world. Then the church split the 80 of us into groups to head off on a three-week outreach into different parts of Africa. TSC was in my group, as was Noo (who is now one of my close friends and was a bridesmaid at our wedding) and Bees (now TSC's best friend and our best man). I couldn't stand any of them. After three weeks in Zambia, we came back friends and TSC and I grew closer and closer. Eventually, he confessed his feelings for me. I explained that I was in a relationship with Bear and was not available. At the end of the year, he left to go back to the Northern Cape. By that time he was my dearest friend and my heart broke to see him go. I turned my focus to trying to sort stuff out with Bear as we went on holiday with my family.

2004: On New Year's Eve, as I nursed a sick and miserable Bear, TSC called me to say he was coming back to Pretoria and ask if I'd be there. My heart leapt and I knew that this was more than friendship. After our holiday I had realised that things between me and Bear would never work out, and I ended things with him. When TSC arrived in Pretoria, I spent a long, long time explaining that I didn't think it was wise for me to get into a relationship, that I was going to Cape Town and that we should not be more than friends. We got together anyway. And I headed off to varsity, which I loved. I enjoyed studying what I liked and made awesome new friends. I joined a fantastic church and lived in res with my gap year friend, Nic. She supported me and I supported her and we did well. In August, my birthday month, TSC moved to Cape Town. I was terrified he'd stifle me and I'd get bored of him. He didn't and I'm still not bored of him.

2005: Another bad New Year's Eve, I went back to bulimia for the first time in two years. This time, I knew what to do and asked for help. I started the whole process of therapy, happy drugs and dieticians again. This time with TSC by my side. As I withdrew from everyone, even Nic, he put up with my blackest moments and protected me when he could. We had the biggest fights of our relationship, but he hung on. Eventually, I began to heal as my first decent therapist and dietician team taught me healthy ways of coping and my amazing friends kept refusing to drop me. I celebrated my 21st birthday with all my friends and family. It was a milestone.

I decided what I wanted to do and chose to pursue my writing. When TSC went to work one day and discovered the project manager (who chased him away with a gun) had spent the entire budget on gambling and booze, I was actually in a position to support him and return his kindness to me through his roughest months of self-doubt and financial stress.

2006: In a much better space, I threw myself into my varisty work and tutored school kids on the side. I ran a church cell group, began to socialise again and decided that TSC was the man I wanted to marry. We got engaged. We had a hectic car accident where we were hit by a speeding fire engine and the car flipped, but we both came out just fine. I wrote my exams and panned the wedding in between and at the end of the year graduated. On 16 December, we got married in the garden on a beautiful wine farm. It was perfect. Our honeymoon to Mpumalanga was a fairytale too.

2007: Our first New Year as a married couple was spent with friends and was such fun. Then we moved into my tiny bachelor flat (47 square metres) and lived together for the first time. His parents came to Cape Town over that period and we fought like cat and dog as family politics came into play and we struggled to share our space and time. I started a copywriting job at an ad agency and learnt to juggle the cooking and cleaning with a full day's work. Eventually, we moved into a bigger flat. it turned out to be a disaster and would flood frequently. But we got our two little kitties and my heart melted for them.

TSC got offered a job in JHB. We decided to move. I worried that we'd be too close to my family and that we were doing the wrong thing. I hated the first three months - we knew nobody, the lifestyle was so different and I missed the natural beauty of the Cape.

But I got amazing work experience doing what I'd always wanted to do - writing - and my relationship with my family improved immeasurably. We joined a church that I fell totally and completely in love with - a church that is relevant and real and exciting to be part of - and we made the effort to meet people. It paid off. I started this blog and met the most incredible people throught the interwebs. I can't imagine not blogging anymore.

2008: I was offered a job at the company where I now work, which gives me the opportunity to freelance. It's tough, but (as Nic's mom would say) it builds character and takes me a step closer to my dreams. TSC decided to study and we bought a house. We began leading our own life group for church (a home cell) and were asked to be part of the leadership team for the new service our church will be staring in Monte Casino next year. We realised how awesome life is at our joint birhtday picnic when we looked around us and saw that we have a life in Jo'burg.

And that, in a nutshell, is me over the last decade. Right, I'd love you all to do this tag, because I think it's therapeutic and I want to read your answers. But seeing I know that's not going to happen, please just let me know if you do decide to to this one. I am a voyeur and want to know all about you!