In for a baby, in for a social grant

Early this year news reports cited “research” showing South African teens are deliberately falling pregnant in order to access social grants.

What utter bollocks.

I am not an advocate of teenage pregnancy; in fact I am vehemently against it as it interrupts a child’s life and interferes with her chances of a successful future. In rural areas (where the news reports claime there were 123 teen pregnant in one town in 2010 and 53 in Nkandla) children are faced with more challenges than those of children in urban areas. I’ll venture insofar as to say that if there are indeed children deliberately falling pregnant to access the social grant, it would likely be teens in urban areas more than those in rural areas.

The first challenge a rural teen faces is the traditional taboo attitude towards dating and socialising with boys that is common in rural areas. Parents zealously (sometimes enforcing their rules with a cane, a belt or sjambok) oppose their teenagers having boyfriends. These children are then forced to hide that they are dating because NOT dating is not an option. They’re teenagers for crying out loud!

Because of this skulking and hiding the teen is then alone in her relationship, often at the mercy of the advice of her friends and feels alienated from her parents who become Enemy No 1, it’s psychology 101, "a no-brainer" as the kids would say.

The second challenge these teens face is that while they are fully aware of contraceptives and condoms, they often do not use both. Kids I have spoken to would like to use contraceptives but the nurses in the clinics refuse them the service even though many of them go when they are 15 or 16 years old. The problem these teens face is that the nurses, instead of doing their jobs, are being proxy parents and deciding that if they give a teen contraception it is as good as cheering them on to have sex. A child who has decided to have sex will have sex, no matter the fear-mongering or beatings. And so they go without contraceptives.

As for condoms, the teens, raised in predominantly patriarchal households where their father’s word is law, even if the father is working in the city and is not home, are susceptible to their boyfriends’ will. The mantra of many black men is that a “real man” doesn’t wear a condom. They protest with a litany of excuses, including:
* The condom is too small (a problem that only seem to befall black men, *snort*)
* The condom smells funny,therby making sex nuaseating (as if it wasn't already ;))
* They are allergic to the lubricant
* Only a girl who knows they have AIDS would want to use a condom
* If you love/trust me you won’t use a condom

When the girl feebly raises the issue of pregnancy, he assures her that he will “pull out” in time. She believes him and takes her chance. The ploys used by black men in order to avoid using a condom are the same ploys that adult women fall for, what are the chances that a teen will be able to resist? How come women in their 30s aren’t condemned for unsafe sexual practices? Despite the arguments to the contrary, mature unemployed, unmarried, women also fall pregnant without planning to should be subject to the same scrutiny teens are in terms of whether or not they are opportunistically falling pregnant because they would also like to milk the state coffers dry, much like the leaders who condemn them for it do.

Although state clinics ought to provide the “morning after” pill I have yet to come across one that stocks it. If clinics do stock the pills the nursing staff of Harding and its surrounds has taken it upon itself to not provide them. So much so that teens stopped asking for it.

When a teen seeks to correct her “stupidly falling pregnant” circumstance by requesting a termination of pregnancy from a state hospital as she is legally allowed to the nurses refuse her the service because of their personal beliefs. I know of a child who was closeted in a room by seven nurses, all about the age of her mother and severely berated for even thinking about an abortion. I myself have an experience in which a doctor in a public hospital refused a cousin on mine an abortion merely because she disagreed with the reasons given for wanting one.

So there is a teen in a rural area, stuck with a pregnancy and without an out, why should she not make use of the state provided social grant in order to help raise this child? Sometimes the teen is still a recipient of a social grant herself. I would like to meet a person who has raised a child on R250 a month in this day and age - only that person can convince me gettting its possible to fall pregnant merely to secure R250 for 18 years of a child's life.

Does this research conclude that the teens then use the money for their personal needs, like maybe a sexy top to seduce old men in? Because that is the implication of the allegation that teens are falling pregnant on purpose. Who then provides for this new infant? Certainly not the poor family a rural teen often comes from. The teen’s schooling is interrupted and sometimes she may never go back to school because there is no one to take care of the baby. Is this research suggesting that teens are choosing this path for themselves? Is this research saying that teens would rather earn R250 per child for the rest of their lives? Is that the best that this country has created for children to aspire to?

I Gave Him HIV; He Asked For It

She sits with her stomach protruding proudly, stretching the worn material of her tube top. One of her eyes is crinkled in a smoker’s squint, a cigarette dangling from her lips.

“I didn’t really want another baby, but it happened!” she laughs raucously. I wonder if she has also been drinking.

“I didn’t find out till it was too late because of the drugs I take, they mess up your period and make you fat you know?”

“Drugs?” I ask, unable to conceal my shock. She’s smoking, taking drugs and possibly drinking while she was pregnant?

She laughs her outrageous laugh again and explains, “ARVs sisi. I’ve been on them for a year now.”

“So your boyfriend knows you’re HIV-positive? Is he also positive?”

“Well NOW he is. I don’t know about before but when I told him I was positive he said he was a real man, refused to use a condom.”

I look stupefied.

“Don’t look so shocked, so many men think you’re joking here if you are straight with them and tell them you’re positive. I’m not going to stop having sex just because they’re stupid.”

She is serious. She belongs to a group of friends who make no bones about being HIV-positive. They say; “It’s just like diabetes or cancer; you just have to take care of yourself.” I applaud them this mentality, in a world where many people still view being diagnosed HIV-positive is a “death sentence” they are amazingly forward-thinking.

All of them have been aware of their positive status for over five years. All of them are on the state ART (anti-retroviral treatment) programme. All of them are alcoholics. All of them have transitional sex.

They claim they tell their prey that they have HIV. They claim most of the men they sleep with refuse to wear condoms stating various reasons including;

-          Real men don’t wear condoms

-          Doesn’t she trust him?

-          Doesn’t the woman trust herself?

-          You’re just saying you’re positive because you want you avoid pregnancy, I’ll ejaculate “outside”.

-          I don’t enjoy it with a condom.

-          I’m too big for a condom.

-          I have HIV too so what does it matter?

-          I’m allergic to the lubricant on government condoms.

-          I can’t “feel” you when I wear a condom.

As these women talk to me, laughing all the while at my stupefied facial expressions, they almost convince me that the men who get infected by these women deserve their just desserts for their stupidity. I ask why don’t the women protect themselves from re-infection?

*explosions of mocking laughter*

Am I serious? If they tried to protect themselves by wearing female condoms (assuming they manage to find some as they claim female condoms are almost the Holy Grail) then the men would stop sleeping with them. Then they would have no alcohol, no places to sleep, no food, no sex no fun. The cycle is vicious. I cannot bear to listen to any more.

“The good thing about the father of this baby is that he is a TEACHER! So he’s rich!” the lively pregnant one laughs gleefully and lights up.

Grabbing the packet (mine) from which she has been pilfering day I make a beeline for a place where such madness is not so normal.

Lessons in Life: A Series - Death of the Blameless

I never met her; I did not know she had moved to the little village she would perish in. And yet she lives in my mind now; a symbol of the price of turning a blind eye to your neighbour’s plight.

Many would later say that moving into the house that once belonged to a man who was brutally murdered by young boys was a sign that she would not live long. But of course, that was just an excuse people used to cope with what they witnessed; a smidgeon of comfort to move past the horror.

Her story will find a chapter in the village’s gory history books, along with the story of my childhood friend;

Nathi was my best friend when we were five years old. My mother and his mother were childhood friends. Secreted away from the brutalities of apartheid while my mother worked in the city, Nathi’s mother was my second mother. I am told that when we were babies his mother would breastfeed us both, and when my mother came home, she would pretend “breastfeed” us too. Nowadays that practice would probably lend someone in jail.

With political rivalry at its highest, Nathi’s father did not like that his mother was a supporter of a political party that rivaled his. Today I would say that Nathi’s father was on drugs, because what happened remains inconceivable to me. So infuriated with his wife’s allegiance to another party he became convinced she was passing on his party’s secrets to hers; he resolved to kill her. It was a night that she had taken Nathi into her bed with her, believing her husband would not be returning that night as it had happened so many times before. It was later discovered that he had lain in wait in their tool shed.

As he raised his spear to plunge into her covered body, he never thought to remove the blankets first, if only to make sure his aim was true. Today I take solace in imagining that Nathi never knew what happened. One second he was sleeping soundly in his mother’s arms, the next, a spear had pierced through his heart, clean through his small five-year-old body. Crazed by the mistake he had made, Nathi’s father never got around to killing his wife.

Nathi’s story is still told in the village. My little daughter knows it, she knows of how I lost my best friend and confronted death at five years old.

This woman’s story is one that will also be sown in the fabric of the village, a legacy of a time when everyone minded their own business. I remember how the village hunted Nathi’s father like a dog while he ran in the mountains, afraid and knowing his life was worthless to the bloodthirsty villagers. I remember how the police rescued him from clutches of a cluster of young men who were beating the life out of him. And then I recall the blasé attitude that this woman’s death was greeted with; the carelessly-told stories by her neighbors about how her lover would beat her up in the dead of night. I shudder at the tales of the horrors he visited upon her four-year-old daughter, and I hang my head in shame at how nobody did anything.

She came to the village with her lover who was born there. They rented the dead man’s house from his aunt who also lived in the village. I have gathered, although one cannot trust village gossip completely, that from the day they moved in to the day the man’s screams called the neighbors to his home, he would beat her and make her watch while he practiced lewd sexual acts on her child. It is said that he was not the father of this child

When she made the short trip, past two houses up, in to the local shop to buy a bug killing spray, she had had enough. She had experienced life at its worst and she knew she could endure no more. Carefully cutting a hole so as to pour the contents into a glass, she made juice for her little one and diluted the poison with it. She then made her child drink. And sat and watched her die. She then drank the remainder of the poison and died too. Her lover found them a day later and policed ruled a double suicide.

I do not know if bug spray can kill humans but the shopkeeper confirms that the woman did buy a large can, the same can that was found empty in her home, and the same substance that could be smelt in the child’s juice glass. The most horrendous aspect of the story to me is that soon after the murder and suicide; the neighbors claimed that the woman had tried to strangle the child twice before resorting to poison. If this is the truth, why did they do nothing? What kind of people are they to sit and do nothing while a child is being harmed?

I have since seen the man who lived with this woman; he is a quiet man, dark with sunken eyes. Even if I hadn’t heard the stories about him I would still be afraid of him. This woman and her child were taken home to be buried; I often ask myself why she didn’t go home. I will never know the answer; I suspect she too, would not have an answer.

A Blogger Challenge: 16 Days of Activism

I’m not a preachy blogger.

*snort*

Seriously.

Well I didn’t used to be, and I’m hoping I not one now also.

25 November 2010 is the beginning of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, this day itself being International Day Against Violence Against Women.

I challenge anyone who feels so inclined to use their blogs to create awareness and participate actively in the 16 Days of Activism by blogging about a real woman you know or have heard of that symbolizes women’s triumph against violence and abuse.

Perhaps I detract from the purpose of the project when I say that violence and abuse does not necessarily have to be “traditional” spousal abuse in which a woman is abused by a man. I challenge you to find that lesbian woman who was traumatized by her lover, that child whose own mother or teacher abused, the woman who rose above the humiliation of sexual harassment at work, the little girls suffering at the hands of bullies on our playground.

As South African woman let’s all stand together, just for 16 days, and barrage the ears of abuses with our words; via our avatars, tweets, blogs, Facebook status and wearing a white ribbon.

You did it for the world cup. :)

You may also participate here. I know I will!


PS: I got this post in early because I'd like those who are interested to invest some thought and time into at least one post! Ta.

Lessons in Life: A Series - Teenage Pregnancy on Budget

“I never planned this for myself,” she says throwing her baby over her shoulder carelessly. The chubby baby boy gurgles in pleasure as he is secured to his mother’s back with a towel. He will spend the best part of today there; nearly six hours of not crawling, not kicking his legs, not playing; just feeding breaks.

“I mean, I knew when I didn’t finish school I would not be likely to get a job that would make me rich, but I hoped that at least I could work for a white madam in Jo’burg, and make enough to take care of myself,” she smiles while she lays out her wares in tiny little towers; four onions for R5. I wouldn’t buy them; they’re too expensive; I can get the same from the supermarket for much less. But she has carved a niche for herself; she keeps people’s groceries while they shop around and when it is time to get into a taxi, they collect their things and have to pay her for her guardian duty. She rarely goes home with left overs.

While her dreams may not have been lofty or adventurous, at least she once dreamed. At 16-years-old she left school, pregnant with her first child. She could have continued to study but even though learners have the right to continue in their studies while pregnant, some teachers have made it their personal duty to make this impossible. They bait those up the duff with snide comments, puns and innuendo.

“Today we start the reproductive system everyone, So-and-So you can leave because you already know this part!” they snigger.

“I can’t say I blame teachers or anyone else for where I am, I am responsible, which is why I work this hard,” sitting down on the make-shift stool made of an empty paint drum and an old pillow, she lights her Cadac Skottel braai for the hot dogs she sells.

The baby on her back is her second, the first now in school. This 23-year-old single mom of two no longer has anyone else in her life. Her parents kicked her out over the second pregnancy. She then moved in with her boyfriend even though she was not sure he was the father of the baby and he beat her up.

“I know that it is wrong to sleep with many men and not condomise, but once you’ve been in my shoes for as long I’ve worn them, you find there is very little that you won’t do for some money,” she explains, a defiant slant in her words. Indeed, who am I to judge?

“My parents gave me and my daughter a place to live and food; everything else I had to work for. They refused to let me leave and look for work; they couldn’t look after my child even though they stay at home. It is through the social welfare grant that I have been able to do anything for the children,” she carries on.

Using the social grant she has managed to rent to a stall at the busy taxi rank, buy the skottel and start her business. She rents a dingy room in an unsavoury part of the little town and lives her life. She no longer dreams, she plans. She knows that you get nothing from doing nothing.

“Throwing me out was maybe the best thing my parents have done for me. Now I know how to take care of myself and my children.” Her voice is with pride. I decide to buy a hot dog, the sausage is cheap, the oil she uses is cheap but there is already a small queue of people wanting some.

As humble pie; it tastes delicious.

Dangerous Obsessions

Hurrying along the streets she clutches her bag close, head held high with false bravado, her mistress rests under her arm. She hustles to her car, careful that she doesn’t harm her precious cargo. She debates on when she will indulge in the comfort of her secret friend. Just one glass she promises herself; before or after dinner. When she wakes up in the wee hours of the morning, her empty bottles surrounding her, evidence at attempts of eating upended on her carpet, she vows; tomorrow, it’ll be just one glass.

Tip-toeing to the fridge, she has practised the dance of avoiding the creaking floorboards over time; given her girth, it is amazing she makes no noise. With cat-like stealth, she swings open her cave of comfort, her eyes scanning its contents. She selects and creeps back to the safety of her bathroom, where she will stand watching herself in the mirror; all the better to watch her shame. As the tears collect between her double chins, self-hatred welling in her ever-fattening body, she’ll promise herself; tomorrow, I’ll begin my diet.

I need to pick up some cosmetics tomorrow, she thinks idly while he plunges insistently inside her, groaning her name, lost in his lust. Her hips move in the practised old waltz of coupling, her mind adrift. She drags her thoughts away from the nearly depleted shower gel, and watches him. She ekes out a measure of comfort from watching his abandoned state; at least right now, he belonged to her. As he reaches his climax she prepares her act, the gift she gives him for the gifts he gives her. He is happy, triumphant and sated. A beautiful girl gives herself to him, whenever he wants her; without asking much in return. As he leaves, the night still long, silent and lonely ahead of her.

She moves with assurance among the men in the high-ceilinged boardrooms of corporate conglomerates. Her womanly curves smothered by straight suits and severe hair. She hides behind her notebook, clutched protectively to her chest, she’s tough as nails, she’s the office bitch, and she’s one of the boys. Sacrificing her femininity for her career; she’s made it. Until she goes home and takes off the war paint, and in the flimsy material of her nightwear, she remembers she is a woman. She craves to laugh and be ditzy at work because that is what girls do! She wishes her guard was not such armour; an unfriendly barrier keeping both the good and the bad at bay.

We all know these women, we have either been them, or we have seen them. They are our friends; refusing to believe that they become monsters after a few drinks, holding on to the excuse that they need to unwind while they slowly unravel. They are without direction, lonely and smothering a world of hurt with a bottle.

They are our sisters; sleeping with married men, afraid they will never find someone to call their own. They hate themselves and use their bodies for comfort from the unworthy, never believing they deserve so much more than they settle for.

The binge-eater could be you; weary of judgemental glances from your work colleagues as you pull out your take-away lunch, tired of the pitying looks from the sales women who shake their heads sadly at you when you ask for a plus size on a skirt you liked. It’s the tactless taxi drivers who shout irritably, “no fat people in the front seat!” that drive you to jump off at your stop and head home to you Twinkies. It’s the feeling of failure and lack of self-discipline that leads you to fill your mouth bulging with food as you watch yourself with loathing in the bathroom mirror. You want to hide it, hide from others, hide from yourself, but you cannot.

I have no words of wisdom for these women, as salvation comes in different formse3 for everyone; but I have the promise that if you want to be saved, you will be.

Too Fat to be Loved?

Nina van Horn of Just Shoot Me says that the purpose of magazines is to sell food from supermarkets. She says that magazines set up impossible standards for women (e.g. how to have multiple orgasms) and when these women do not have these multiple orgasms they feel inadequate. This results in:

Inadequacy = Loneliness/Sadness = Hunger = Buying Food = Richer Supermarkets

It’s a simple enough concept; expect that after “richer supermarkets”, comes “women gain weight”.

Women are burdened; they’re pained and suffer at the hands of expectations. The minute a woman gains weight she must worry about her sex life or more correctly, the impeding absence of a sex life.

But fat men the world over get laid up and the down in various made-for-the-obese sex positions. To add insult to injury these men have SKINNY women to fulfill their sexual needs while fat women cry into their double chins, watching Singleton TV and eating ridiculously expensive ice cream.

While out with some friends a while ago, I sat observing the goings on of bar pulling. Two girls sat nursing two overlarge exotic-looking drunks, chatting amiably. I was part of a group of both girls and boys and so I was safe from any unwanted scrutiny. Anyway, one girl was big, the other skinny - as it always is with friends. The big one was beautiful and very well dressed, the skinny one wasn’t much to write home about but dressed well and nicely turned out. They didn’t seem to be looking for anything more than just a drink together.

A guy approached the skinny girl and asked for her name and number. She gave him her name but not the number. He said if she wanted to get to know him better then she should join him and his friends and gestured over to a table of three guys and a girl. The skinny girl, to her credit, declined again and said she just wanted to have a drink with her friend, (I should point out at this point the big girl had the look of a long-suffering friend of a skinny person, she even offered to leave so her friend could join the guys if she wanted and my heart broke.) The skinny friend (obviously a decent person) pooh-poohed the idea and told guy no thanks. The guy, sensing that he was losing, turned nasty (what else?), “Oh, you wanna package usdudla?”*

I wanted to stand up and throw my drink at him but it seemed more prudent to mind my own business. The skinny woman didn’t bother to answer him and after a few more taunts the jerk left them alone. Perhaps feeling my eyes on them, the fat girl looked up and caught me staring; I smiled at her and winked. I don’t know why I winked because she probably thought I was a big les and gave me a very stern stare. I was suitably chastised although my smile lingered until she just ignore me.

This scene exhibited to me with great clarity, the plight of big women in the dating world. While a woman may be self-assured, confident and strong (albeit with an inability to control what she eats) some men will only see the rolls of fat and gigantic thighs straining against the supposedly slimming black pants.

They won’t give the hearty laugh a chance to envelope them in contagious merriment, preferring instead to know their laugh as the chortle of the heavy-gutted. Instead of exploring the personality they will worry about the possibility of needing a GPS to explore the generous curves. They won’t realize that every dismissal chirps away at her heart and sends her further and further into Comfort Eating Zone.

It’s all good and well to claim women don’t need men and vice versa but that’s just a bunch of bollocks happy people tell unhappy ones in order to give them hope. Of course the opposite sexes need each other and not just for procreation either!

So to the fellow big gals out there, I’m going to be honest with you, you need to be lucky; lucky enough to find a guy who loves you; just as you are. You will like many who won’t give you a second glance because of your weight. I’m not going to say try and lose the weight, if you could you would have by now, but then you would discover you have to sift through a lot of skinny-girl-loving jerks to find your man. This way, the jerks stay away because of your weight and you’re left with a, significantly smaller yes, decent pond.

Happy fishing!

*Fatty

To my friend who died

When you look back, what will your best memory of me be? Will you look back? What made you leave to begin with? Could you not trust me to be there for you? Did you not want to see me no more? When you look back, will your life have not been worthy of a fight? When life left you, did I walk across your mind? When you look back, will it be to light my way or to curse my tomorrows?

Will you hold it against me, that after the first failure, I never wanted to try again? Will you believe that I never hated you but I hated what you did? When you’re looking back will you realise you that you should have been more? That you should have done more? When you look back will your mistakes matter or only your triumphs? Will you believe that your place in the world needs to be filled? Will you believe that you will be missed? Will you see the mark you made? When you look back will you ask for my forgiveness, should I give it to you anyway?

When I say goodbye, I will wish for happy tomorrow. I will remember you fondly, and relish the good memories. I will regret never making more and knowing that they will never come again. When I say goodbye I will hold the tears in celebration of our life. I will cover your earthly remains in red soil and imagine the burnt colour of the soil is the blood you spilt in fight for your beliefs, for your family, for friends. I will honor the memory and treasure the lessons. I will forgive and I will forget the hurt that finally separated us, reuniting with your spirit because it was never mean-spirited of cruel, just foolish and prone to mistakes as it is in life.

For your family I pray for clarity, for peace, for comfort. They must find solace in knowing you lived according to your own rules, never once wavering. You enjoyed every day of your life and never once short-changed yourself. Your chose your friends for heart and not for show. You forgave family even when they wronged you and always provided beyond the expected. I wish them the best in everything.

Rest in peace my friend,

ABCi

When I guessed, and when I knew

When I guessed, and when I knew

It was 19 May 2008 and I stood, swaying slowly on the spot, the incredibly high heels I was wearing putting up and amazing show of good shoemanship, and squinted for the cab I was waiting for to arrive. The incredibly cute guy who had basically taken it upon himself to look after me all night was standing next to me. I knew he was my friend Tasha’s friend. I knew his name was Johnny, but by that time I was suffering such acute embarrassment and it was taking so much brain power  to stay standing, I pretended  I couldn’t see him.

We had been attending Tasha’s birthday party and to say that I had been the life and soul of the party would be an understatement. I had ruled the entire joint and by the morning I was probably the subject of hilarious tales across the city. My phone began ringing incessantly from midday from about six people I had met and made firm friends with the night before. I was gratified that all of them were women. They all invited me out again and for a dizzying month, I was the showpiece and often the only black person in pubs around Linden, Greenside and Sandton.

But on the morning following that fateful May day, I began to suspect my life was about to change and if I didn’t adapt, I would die. I knew in my heart of hearts that I was heading downward and I knew from experience that climbing back up from the abyss was a journey I could not do twice. I had had my chance and it was that chance that I was gambling with now.

In the beginning of July I woke up from a days-binge of alcohol with the garbage bin in my bedroom reeking of puke, my ankle was badly sprained, the TV was on and my swollen feet were stuffed in yellow high heels. Under the pressure of keeping up appearances, of partying with now-faceless and nameless people, I had finally buckled. To this day, I am so grateful it was the holidays and my children were away visiting. I had ushered them away as soon as school closed so I could continue to bury myself in alcohol. I was mourning the death of my ex, a recent discovery of an untenable situation I found myself in and a perceived personal failure. I was a mess.

That is when I knew. My life had changed. It had irrevocably changed and I needed to change with it. It was TJ who helped me find the right path and the strength I needed to follow that path.

Over the past two years I have been so tempted to go to the liquor store and buy myself a case of beer to just drink and drink and drink until I pass out. But the memory of that bin, nearly brimming over with vomit, the stink of the bedroom, the cigarette burns on my very expensive linen, my inability to get up and wash myself because my ankle throbbed so much, serve as a reminder to me that I may be amazing in other things, but I cannot handle my drink.

And I have proved to myself in the past two years that I am an amazing person. Hiding behind alcohol so long I never gave myself a chance. I thought I had to be OUT THERE, I had to be crazy and I mistakenly thought that I could only be those things if I was drunk. In the past two years I have only drunk less than three full glasses of wine if one had to measure, and those in the company of my boyfriend, in celebration. I do not want to fear alcohol, but I know it is not my friend.

In the past two years I’ve realised a few things, I’m AWESOME, I’m CRAZY, I’m IN YOUR FACE, I’m OUT THERE and I’m outrageous. It has absolutely nothing to do with booze. I’m mad and I love it.

Relationships - Stepping off the edge.

Relationships

There are many twists and turns in a relationship. Often, the corridors leading to different doors are not the wide straight aisles like a grocery stores’, they’re not smooth like marble tiled floors of luxurious hotels, they’re not lined with trees that provide shade from the elements and add aesthetic value.

Instead they are steep paths descending from the highest waterfall, nearly vertical, descendible on faith and wit, the paths narrow and widen with so much frequency those who travel them cannot for one second take anything for granted. Some bridges that connect two areas of relationships are rickety and have to be crossed by looking straight ahead, forget the maelstrom below.

And then there are the doors; the hidden destinations, places to rest briefly when one finishes an ascent up a steep slope of broken trust, when the door provides respite from the constant need to prove your affection and one is merely receiving it. There are doors that hide the tastelessness of fear wrought by an impending end of a chapter, when you both do not know if a door leading on will open; whether or not you will have a chance to leave this terrible room with its suffocating fears and many unknowns. When you find the door it opens up to a room of pillows, a room of abounding love when you both feel insulated from the hurts of the world. When everything is light and pillow fights are like puffs of clouds gently caressing you as you both laugh. In this room you are rewarded for walking with faith through the rickety bridge, for taking that leap of faith, for ignoring the maelstrom.

But eventually, this room of pillows is delivers its ultimate deceit, while it kept the hurt from the outside, it forgot to protect you from each other. A forgotten clothes pin, found in the lining of the cushion snakes out to jab one of you in the eye. You don’t want to believe it, but your better half is suddenly your bad cop.

Blinded, you fumble through the room of pillows, your blood flowering in pretty patternes on the whites of the clouds and claw along the wall, in search of a door leading on. You are praying this door will lead to another rickety bridge, you hope over that bridge there is another room of pillows. But often, as you step out the door, your eyes unseeing and the pin still in your eye, you know there is no bridge.

You’ve stepped over the edge.

What you find as you hit the bottom is your choice.

Is it a rock?

Or is it a cushion?

Relationships, how they begin and how they end is often the same. And when you stepped over the first edge, you fell on a cushion, and began your walk through the rickety bridges and the steep paths. You walked with determination because you knew someone was with you, ready to give you a leg up. When you walk out the edge this time, will you be able to face the walk, even if it to have a relationship with yourself?