The sunlight, sharp and clear, bears down on the driest of earth in a blaze so painfully pure that it may as well have been an open flame. I try to avoid the blast by huddling into the small shadow left by a rather small Ficus, but the howling wind bites into every part of me, exposed and shaded. Nature does not discriminate.
And the personal review
Hi guys, welcome to my personal review of my blog, excluding all the numbers and apparent successes and failures. I wish to thank my readers, all of you have contributed to these small successes, and sadly, the failures are all thanks to inconsistent posting :-/ Oh well, we are what we are, right?
So, instead of promising the world this time around and again failing to post what I need to, I will post what I can, when I can, and most importantly, whatever I want to… I actually just need a good kick in the pants… right, review:
I started this blog off with a bang, posting many, and varied, posts. Most of them appeared rather poorly written, but as things progressed to the end of February and March, I seemed to get slightly better at expressing my thoughts as eloquently as I am able to, intermittently off course. Sadly there was this crazy moment in March where I believed that posting as my cat should be funny and interesting. What a schmuck I am *shakes head* Well, thankfully the idea died rather quickly, and I decided to just move on from there.
April appeared to be a better writing month for me, one filled with consistently good posts, well written mostly, if not always brilliantly inspired, whereas May turned out to be rather uninteresting with just the one post. It was a huge step for me nonetheless, confronting part of my past head on. June turned out to be a good one. I liked most of my posts, and the content was much more interesting to read. Turns out, the rest of the world thought so too!
July was my holiday, so off course, it was drier than the Sahara, and it all went downhill from there. Reading some of my posts, and just remembering what they were about, has me realizing the importance of a journal. I find it shocking how I didn’t realize my downward slope into depression was taking place so radically and noticeably. This blog is by far the best resource for me; it helps me deal with me, it helps me deal with history, it allows so much to be said, and puts it all back into perspective for me. Well, I’m going to go out and get some help, because clearly I was taken off the antidepressants WAY too soon. My poor poor husband… He really must have the fortitude of a rock.
2011 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,500 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 25 trips to carry that many people.
Click here to see the complete report.
Medieval Stocks Part 2
Write a motivational letter and you could win this...
A follow up on this blog: http://hereirayne.wordpress.com/2011/02/20/medieval-stocks/
Out of all the blogs that I have ever posted, this blog is consistently the highest hitting post I have ever had. This is why I decided, instead of just getting rid of the stocks (which I only use on Halloween anyway, or storing it indefinitely for that purpose alone, I am going to give you the option of bidding (with words) for it. You can bid simply by writing the best motivational letter of what you will use it for. That’s it folks. No money (other than courier costs off course, if applicable) will be needed.
The best motivation, off course, wins the stocks. I will post the letter to my blog so all can see the fairness I can exude *wink* BTW… closing to submit letters are… 15 January 2012
Contact me on this email for your chance at the stocks: hereirayne@rocketmail.com
xxx
Who I am & the Letter
I have been silent for the simple reason that for a while, it felt as if my whole world fell apart. After working up the courage to confide to a good friend, patting myself on the back for my outstanding bravery for this huge accomplishment, and then being kicked in the face for my efforts when the friend declared, in dripping venom, that I should not be offering advice when my life sucks, so I should just rather shut up and sit in a corner.
Those were off course not her exact words, but you get the gist. Well, I felt her words as if she physically hit me and I felt out of breath for days. I cried on and off for 3 weeks before the anger kicked in. Sadly, during the three weeks of mourning, an idiotic colleague, whom I don’t care enough about to dislike or like, tells me that she believes that I can handle it when she tells me that she never liked me. Random much?
We’ve been working together for years, we get on fine, have never had problems, she just didn’t really EXIST for me, if you know what I mean? She was there, and she was nice, but she wasn’t really THERE. I barely know her. So wtf? Right? What on Earth did I do to her to deserve her enmity? And if, the 40% of the world that I KNOW dislikes me, and the 50% of the world that I believe couldn’t care enough to dislike or like me also apparently dislikes me, and the 10% of the world that are my friends and despise me enough to betray and humiliate me publicly, what the hell am I still doing here?
Well, that is exactly how I felt when I wrote this letter. I didn’t want to publish it, but then decided I would. Because, you know, this is where I was during my silence. I have recently learned that despite the fact that the rest of humanity can’t reconcile who I am with how pathetically fake and useless they are as a species, I am ok with it. I am interested in ancient Egypt, I love sci-fi, I love fantasy, I write, I paint badly; I can’t play a musical instrument, well, I can play… I just do it very very badly. I listen to Elvis and to Dropkick Murphy’s and think Justin Bieber is lame, I like reading and generally hate the movies of the books afterward because they (pardon the French folks) FUCK IT UP. I cry at weddings (but only when the bride walks down the aisle) and find the wedding service dull and pretentious. I am polite to everyone, whether I like you or not, because I dislike rudeness.
I sing loudly and the world shakes because my voice is that bad. I believe strongly, have strange and random beliefs that I never push down on others, I can’t be converted to your faith, but respect you all the same. I like all these parts of me. This is who I am, and if I do not conform to what you perceive I should be, well, sorry, I’d rather be me than whatever you’re supposed to be.
So hate me, I don’t care, I will still just not care enough about you to hate or love you. That is who I am. If you don’t like it, well, there’s simply nothing I can do about that. I have always found my peace in writing, reading and following my dreams. I’ve never needed you or whatever your current idea of perfection is. I am 10 kg overweight, but you know, after living my entire life as skin and bone, I finally like my body, if you want to be a stick figure or a whale, I generally don’t care. Yes, I’m almost chubby. AT LAST. So leave me the fuck alone. If you hate my taste in music, don’t hang around where you can listen to it. If you hate my writing, don’t read it. If you think my dress sense is whacked, yeah well, it is kinda, but I like it, so there. I don’t like make up much, but you know what, I don’t need to paint myself to be who I am. Sometimes I’ll throw on some green eyeshadow and green highlights in my hair, other times I’ll hang out in my PJ’s the whole day.
If you’ve never liked me anyway, I have nothing to lose by being who I want to be, and everything to gain. I like me. I like chubby crazy wild and whacky me, and this letter… this letter is the last time that you will ever kick me while I’m down, bringing my existence as a person into question when I really should have made peace with that a long time ago.
Dear Mother.
It should please you greatly to hear that your hard work has paid off. I’m as wrecked a human being as you could ever hope to find. I’m not half the mother myself that I ever hoped to be, and yet, I’m far better than you yourself ever were.
I’m married to an amazing man who is mostly kind and brilliantly funny, and incredibly attractive to boot, but can still not find acceptance from him for my clumsy nature and irrepressible enthusiasm. He is far too reserved a man to ever live with someone half as wild as me. Yet he perseveres, and I’m left humbled and a little ashamed for not attempting to curb my outrageousness. Truth be told though, my wild nature is an attempt to prevent myself from ever turning into a stuck up snob like you. I’d rather sing at the top of my voice in the pouring rain than sit behind a canvas because it is expected of me. I tried that, and I have no artistic talent, remember? I’m the family Picasso. We all remember well how little you thought of that painter. No, Van Gogh was everything, if only I had a smidgeon of his greatness.
An inability to trust my fellow man has left me with few to none friendships, and the few I have is generally built on reserved behavior and perfect poise. The fun and outrageous crowd I love to surround myself with are actually far too frivolous to truly understand the precarious balance I live upon; the knife’s edge of sanity. Either I am outrageous and wild, or dignified and solicitous. Truly, I have no idea where I belong. I question daily my motivation for my silly joy of life, my reckless and wild crazy love of loud and boisterous music and dancing, when I have in equal measure this incredible sense of propriety. I no longer know.
It would further please you to hear that the one instance that I trusted a friend with a personal problem, I was betrayed and humiliated publicly, my sorrow thrown into the face of those closest to me and my value as a human being, friend and advisor completely debased, with none to raise a word of honor or defense. I have finally learnt the hardest lesson of all, the one you were trying so hard to force into my psyche. I am not worthy of friends. I am not worthy of love and above all, should never have existed. I believe you now. I will never make the same mistake again. I am a failure at motherhood, a failure at being a wife and a failure at being a friend. Worthless and unwanted. Now that I have acknowledged your infinite power over my existence, I would very much like for your ghost to stop haunting me, stop dogging my steps, and stop whispering your demotivating dribble. I truly, finally, irrevocably, believe.
The world of “Blog”
For a long time, my voice has been silent, and with no real good reason. First I was drawn into the World of Warcraft, and after an addicting 3 weeks of playing the game through every spare moment, my sanity seemed to return slightly, just to find myself lost in the world of Stargate. After a marathon of watching every SG1 episode and the heartbreak that went with the end of Season 10, my sanity finally seemed to return – tentatively off course.
I am shocked to discover that my blog, devoid of my madness, did not improve, did not post new and exciting topics daily and in fact, did absolutely nothing in my absence!
I was kind of hoping that removing my bad influence meant that it would simply write itself and improve drastically if I’ve been removed from it, but alas, it turns out the world isn’t quite ready for an artificial me, and a ghost writer is for successful, famous people.
All right, I admit, I forgot about the existence of the world of “Blog”, but you can’t rightly blame me. I existed in a wonderful world of fiction for a few weeks! So, as punishment for my severe and appalling neglect of Here I Rayne, I decided to commit to the following:
NaNoWriMo (I registered today and am going to have to do the flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants-thing) Because my book still requires far too much research to continue working on it, so I’ll have to randomly think up something else (which should be easy for someone as whack as me, right?). I will never in a million years be able to do 1500 words a day, especially as rusty as I am after this long, long silence, but I want to aim for 500 words a day, and if I do more, I can reward myself with bacon *thought of 10 Kg overweight already pops into my head* All right, no bacon. It was worth a shot. *Sigh*
Very well, 1500 words a day, and one blog a week. After successfully concluding this project for November, I’m allowed one plate of bacon and eggs. Right?
Does this blog count as blog 1 of four for November 2011?
#FML – It happens to the best of us, and apparently to me too.
I wrote this blog a few weeks back and decided not to post it. The reason for that was because I was hating every moment and every thing in my life and just didn’t want anyone to know how bad it was. I decided today, I should post it. Probably because I am feeling positive again; but mostly because I think mothers everywhere can relate. So here it is:
My blog has been so quiet lately and no matter what I say to motivate myself to get moving, nothing I write seems to feel natural, so I save draft after draft one paragraph in and never finish it. Today, I finally figured out why. Off course, I had to get a panic attack first, nothing as simple as a normal epiphany for me, no sir!
So you’re thinking, panic attack? Yeah well, it happens to the best of us… and to me too apparently. So this is how it happened: I’m a working mom.
Yes, that’s it. I’m afraid there is nothing else to it. I dashed all your hopes of it not happening to you, didn’t I? Yeah well, toughen up… or at least buy some wine.
I’m in that rough place where I know who I am and what I want, but I have no idea how to make it happen. I also have no idea how to reconcile my wife-side and my mom-side with the newly discovered me. It’s still me, but I’m growing, and getting to know myself better, so how do my old identity, which is still me, fit in with my new identity that is also still me? Deep breath… only my breath, only my breath, only my… Right, I’m back, and focusing.
Obsessing about it is also not helping. Yeah, self-help-gurus, I know you advise against obsessing, but suck it. I don’t know how to stop. The best we can sometimes hope for is the ability to get through the day.
I did a piece on 10 things I should remember, and I am sticking with my own advice, sometimes all we have is our faith, and that’s okay too. Never mind the fact that I’ve imagined myself with fingers around my hubby’s throat like five times today and fidgeted with the masking tape, thinking how wonderful it would be if I wouldn’t feel guilty for taping my incessantly talking 9 year-old daughter’s mouth closed. Yes, I need to forget that I entertained such horrific notions, or that I deliberately locked myself in the ladies room for 20 minutes today because I simply couldn’t face anything or anyone while I was motivating myself not to cry.
Faith, the one thing I say to myself every day, Keep the faith. Tomorrow… Tomorrow everything will get better. Just one more day, you can do this. Sometimes though, sometimes I just can’t, and I need to lock myself in a bathroom to regain my composure. Mothers are so hard on themselves. Half the things that I imagine doing will never be realized either because I am too ashamed to even admit it to myself (Thank God), or I’m too busy to strive for it (Damn).
Friends, this is what I am talking about. Trying to follow your dreams when you have other responsibilities is hard, even for the best of us, and apparently, for me too.
Coming to terms with my goals and my reality is a journey that is going to take the rest of my life, and I think I’m okay with it. Screw that, I’m getting some wine! I’m so very much not okay with it.
Here I Rayne Blog Challenge # 3
This is my favourite one off my blog challenge list. The options on this are only as limited as your imagination. The title for the next challenge is simply named:
The Letter
Well, what are you waiting for?
The Here I Rayne Blog Challenge # 2
The path to hell is paved with good intentions:
Hell it seems is definitely a place on earth. After all, do you have another explanation for in-laws? I have to be clear on this. I used to never be able to relate to people who have problems with their in-laws. Don’t get me wrong, we didn’t always see eye to eye, but real problems? Not really, no.
So when we have the opportunity to go on holiday to the Kruger National Park with the in-laws it really didn’t seem like a challenge. Two weeks with the in-laws? No problem. I expected it to bring the family closer together. That feeling did not last. A two day road trip where every stop was controlled by my father in law, where sleepover spots were picked by my father in law and departure times were… you guessed it… controlled by my father in law.
So off course you are expected to:
Give up the front passenger seat
Be available during the entire holiday in the Kruger Park as chauffer service
Be the villain if you want one day to yourself
Do the dishes if you want a moment of peace
Be considered insane if you want to read a chapter of your book before bedtime (what, you don’t take a book on holiday?)
Bite your tongue no matter what negative comments are floating around about you
Not say anything if you shower in cold water (in winter)
Smile all the time. Never ever stop smiling (my cheeks still hurt months later trying to keep that smile in place)
Never, ever get annoyed with your other half, no matter what he does or say.
After the holiday, when you are on your two day road trip back home, you will be expected to:
(on the sleepover night)
Be extremely quiet
Not play with your child outside
Be impressed by your father in law’s impressive holiday planning
Hear how much nonsense comes out of your mouth
Not use the laptop
Go to bed at 19h30
On the last day of the trip (on your birthday)
Be expected to know directions to a place you’ve been to once (from a road you’ve never been on)
Be considered crazy when you say it’s the wrong road
Get yelled at when the road (that you’ve been insisting is the wrong road for 30 minutes) has you ending up 100 Km from where you should be.
As a footnote, you should also know you will be expected to hear the implication that you were unpleasant during the holiday (no matter how polite, nice or helpful you were)
So yes, the path to hell really is paved with good intentions.
