Sunday, June 3, 2012

Do I really live here?












As I was driving down to Simons Town on Sunday afternoon, I was on a bit of a cloud nine. Firstly, I had slept until I woke up which was refreshing in its own right. I almost always get 8-9+ hours of sleep nowadays, but that’s more because I’m strict with my bedtime (to the endless amusement of some of my friends) than anything. To sleep until I woke up … beautiful.

Secondly, when I woke up I was pain-free in my psoas for the first time in recent memory. Even my ankle felt better than normal. Of course it’s still tender and I’m still very injured … but that’s huge progress.

Thirdly, I’d spent a good portion of Saturday afternoon planning my U.S. trip and Garden Route trips. Between the thought of baseball games and the Golden Gate Bridge, Dunkin Donuts and Peet’s, the California coast and my mother’s garden, American flags and turkey burgers, Sunset Boulevard and Sonoma, CFNE, DCF, CFO, SFCF, the CrossFit Games, and surely some new friends and deepening of existing relationships, SUMMER, and some people I love so much I could cry when I actually think about how much I miss them, I’m getting excited.

But first, taking Ms Susan Mopper on the roadtrip to end all road trips. No, I’m not going to spoil the surprise but I have some epic things planned for our trip; some places I’ve been before and some places waaaaay farther than I went last year. Eastern Cape, here we come!

At the same time, I was doing a very Cape Town thing and made plans to meet someone for lunch maybe an hour before we met. I felt the need to get out of the city, and get a couple things done that I didn’t manage to finish last week. Frustrating how you can show up to work with the best of intentions and then not actually follow through on what you want to get done. Meh.

Anyway as I was coming around the bend from Fish Hoek to Simons Town I just had one of those ‘oh my God this is SO BEAUTIFUL’ moments. This is so amazing, how lucky am I to live here? I think that a lot. How lucky am I to train at this beautiful gym, and have a huge amount of fun almost every day when I do train? How lucky am I to be breaking new ground in social enterprise (because let’s face it, that’s what we’re doing)? Call me unreasonable but I want that breathtaking stop-you-in-your-tracks feeling not all the time, mind you, but at least some of the time. If you don’t get it, something’s probably wrong but you haven’t admitted it to yourself.

Not that things are perfect, mind you. There’s always a balance. As much as I love being in South Africa, I’m literally one month away from having to dip into my retirement account in America to continue paying mortgage on a house I haven’t lived in for two years. For those of you not in the know, this comes with a big tax penalty. A big one.

As much as I love CrossFit, I do sometimes seriously wonder if the constant injuries are worth it, really. Maybe I should pick a different sport as my primary one.

As much as I love where I’m working and the potential of the work we do, the lack of funding and progress to date is incredibly frustrating and hardly a day goes by that I don’t at least think about doing something else.

I suppose it’s the other side of that coin I was talking about the last time. The aspect of myself that once I get going does NOT want to stop, and that makes me loyal not only to a fault but past the point of where something is actually good for me and into the realm of not so good for me. But I make my own choices. Some of them are wise, many of them are foolish. At least I make my bed and understand that I must lie in it.

Oh well. I am what I am. What I think of myself and what others think of me are, I suppose, interesting. Perhaps that’s part of the journey as well, learning to accept the things about myself that simply are, over which I have no (or very little) control, because you can’t control everything, and that if I were to change might anyway have unintended consequences. Can anyone imagine an Ellie who doesn’t care too much? Would you want to?

Yeah, I didn’t think so.

On a related point, I also need to learn to accept that if some people just don’t like me or don’t like certain aspects of me, that’s ok too. Not everyone is going to like me, and I just need to learn to accept that.

And as winter days go, this one was to die for.
  • “You just never completely assimilate.” – Jo
  • “I’m not humble. I’m realistic.” – Ellie

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