12 Years A Fool

Twelve years is a long time for an unresolved issue to hang around, it's stench becoming more pronounced, the entire situation becoming a breeding ground for resentment and anger.

To that end I will be tackling an old scar with my ex, in the hopes of finding closure and hopefully a clear path for he future.

Here's to the opening salvo!

She who cried laughs last, the loudest

For now it's enough that I just acknowledge that.

She won.

I lost.

More fool I.

How many times have I sang this song?

New start!

Huzzah!

Yeah right.

There is no new start, maybe just  a resolve to do better tomorrow and that should be good enough. I haven't blogged in a while because basic my life is up shit creek and I no longer watch the news or read the papers enough to have an opinion about anything.

So; I'm going to renew my efforts.

I'm making a list and everything.

Crossing fingers.

Broken Women of the South

I was going about the mundane task of shredding lettuce for a salad when my mother launched into a tale with chilling nonchalance and a blasé air. A woman we all knew, a woman trained in law enforcement, a policewoman, had been killed in cold blood by her boyfriend. It no longer mattered that the woman had been married and her having a boyfriend had gained disfavour in our small community (because in a small town everyone knows everyone’s business).

Nobody knows why it happened but everyone knows what happened. The woman was nine months pregnant. Everyone had been having a lovely time speculating about whose baby it would be. Even though they judged her, and judged her harshly, nobody wished to see the woman dead. So on the day a keening cry was heard, emitted by her aged mother on a clear sunny afternoon, nobody laughed; nobody thought she deserved it; and many cried upon hearing the grisly tale.

It would be her young children’s testimony that would lead to the arrest of her boyfriend. It seems that the woman went missing for a few weeks; no one was alarmed as her lover was missing too and everyone added two and two together. The boyfriend came back, claiming to have been visiting family and asked where the woman was. That was when the alarm was raised. When police came asking questions, the children said it was the boyfriend whom they had last seen with the woman. Perhaps it is the compulsion, often cited in criminal modus operandi investigations, for the murderer to return to his crime scene that sent the boyfriend looking for the woman. In a matter of hours, the woman’s now decomposing body was discovered in a cane field. Her abdomen had been slit open, the child wrenched from her uterus and bludgeoned to death. There were signs of rape and stab wounds.

Each slice of my knife into the tomatoes made me visualise the murder of this woman. No matter what she had done, no matter her morals, she did not deserve to die like she did. And yet I carried on, ‘oohing’ and ‘aaaihing’ when appropriate while my mother regaled me with the horrifying story.

On Monday, a co-worker told us the story of how she found her children’s nanny stabbed, her eyes gouged out and raped the previous Saturday. Y co-worker had to identify the body when the community called her and asked to see whether or not the ‘victim’ was still alive. Despite this shocking experience, my co-worker was at work on Monday, although visibly sad, showing no signs of the emotional scarification one would expect from the encounter.

My mother, my co-worker and myself are products of a country that has become desensitised to violence. We are saddened yes, we grieve, but we are hardly ever shocked at the violence of crimes against women. We are no longer distraught when we hear stories like this, we are just fervently thankful it was not us. We are aware that nothing differentiates us from those who have fallen victim to such cruelty, except sheer dumb luck. We are powerless to protect ourselves pre-emptively, because when our turn comes the perpetrator might not need to break down windows or scale walls, it could be someone who has shared your bed and shown you what you thought to be love.

Indeed, our country is diseased.

Mama said I am fat

So the other day my mother kind of took me to the top of the tallest building in Dubia, let me chill there for a bit and enjoy the view, then she pushed me over the edge. I am still reeling.

Mom: You are so beautiful my child.

Me: Ooooh! Thank you!

Mom: Pity you are so fat.

Could the world stop just a minute? I would like to disembark for a bit.

My mom was not lying; but everyone hates hearing one of the worst things they think about themselves being confirmed by someone else. It’s like when you are on the verge of breaking up with a boyfriend and he breaks up with you first.

To be frank, I have been pretty OK with my weight. So, I'm not svelte with a thigh-gap and perky boobs, but I have the love of a great man, I have a job I like and I have a wonderful family. That seriously is all I want from life.

But recently, I have been feeling the pressure from EVERYWHERE. Random people comment on my weight, I HATE going clothes shopping because of the pitying look from sales girls and the plainly terrified looks from boutique owners.

My partner has been pretty cool about my weight seesaw. When I went on a health kick because I had to be fit for health purposes he bought me a bunch of exercise DVDs because I asked for them. I really did enjoy them. But then I got sick again and had to slack off the exercise; which meant I completely lost the plot and haven’t done any exercises in a long time.

So now (after my mom's brutality, the infrequency of cat calls from construction workers, the sensitivity to Tweets about “fat chicks, and the desire to stand happily in front of a mirror without grabbing hold of errant excess flash and squeezing it), I'm going to have to make a lifestyle change.

Ugh!