Happy Birthday to Me! A whole 23 years old!

*1 Well, I feel a teensy weensy bit better today, except for the raging headache I woke up with. In fact my very first words this morning were, "Ive got SUCH a bad headache!"

But I diligently went for my run this morning, which strangely enough calmed the painful throbbing in my head just long enough until the "high" that one gets after doing physical exercise, started to fade away. Great. Headache tablets have not made any improvements on my discomfort, and I am seriously considering swallowing a whole handful in the hopes of numbing my aching brain into submission. Just kidding. Dont start worrying. Im not THAT miserable!

My boss seems to think that Im not happy enough on my birthday, so he bought me a stunning boquet of flowers. Im so impressed. I havent seen him buy flowers for anyone here at the office. I must look absolutely down in the dumps.

D remembered my birthday and sent me an email. I cant help but notice that it is short and to the point.

My mom sent me one of the most emotional emails I have ever received. I actually cried when I read it, although silently, and I had to wipe the tears away before anyone noticed. Apparently she cried as she wrote it. It was just absolutely beautiful. Ive posted it below.

Despite my miserable mood and not feeling up to taking birthday phonecalls and sms', it wasnt so bad. If anything, the fact that all these friends and family have all thought about me at least once today made me feel slightly better and a little more loved.

But oh my gosh, I cannot believe that I am 23 already. "!!!!!!" I see my age on my profile has dutifully ticked over.

Here's to another year gone by!

Mum's email:

Dearest [Leigh*2],

This time, 23 years ago, at 13h30, I met you for the first time. I carried you for 9 months, acting as the wrapping on a very precious gift, protecting you, and getting to know you. During that time we had the closest relationship possible. No two people can be closer than a mother carrying her child…

Then you took centre stage! I feel privileged to have you as my daughter, and am proud standing in the wings, watching your life unfolding. You are beautiful, clever, funny and loving -all in the right measure.

[Leigh], life is a one-time opportunity. Embrace it with enthusiasm, and live it to the full. I want to share every triumph with you, and bear you up when things get you down, but the living of it is entirely up to you.

And so today you start on a new year of your own. Remember you are a precious gift. To me, your father, and everyone else who loves you.
Have a wonderful day!
All my love,
Mommy xxXXxx

*1 = My little indulgence. Too iffy about whether or not to use a picture of myself on my profile, so here I am at work, just because its my birthday!

*2 = Of course Leigh is not my real name, kind of. Its my second name as I prefer not to use my first name on my profile.

BLAH! - update on previous post

I feel miserable. Absolutely miserable. Its like I have been walking along the narrow path of happiness and confidence in myself, but grew a little too confident and walked right off of it and into the thorny bushes alongside, where the branches are twisted, tangled and knotted in their confusion and hopelessness. I am just as tangled and confused as they are. Restricted and held back.

All of a sudden I dont feel so carefree and easygoing as I have been for these past months. I had forgotten what it felt like to feel so low and hopeless. It shows how easily one can forget about their lows, no matter how many there were, once they are feeling perfectly fine and content. It just makes feeling this way all the worse for having known what it is like without it.

I know that some part of this is because Boyfriend is stopping me from emailing D. Besides the feeling I might still have for him from almost four years ago, Im really more sad about the fact that he was someone I could talk to about things that I know Boyfriend isnt really interested about. We have things in common, and I really enjoyed being able to chat to someone like-minded. Its different with a Boyfriend sometimes. I mean, I can chat to him about basically anything, but often certain subjects get boring or overtalked and its not the same. So I am really sad about losing contact with someone who I consider a good friend. I cant guarantee that I wont email him again, or that he wont email me again. I mean, my birthday is coming up (this Thursday), so we'll see a) if he remembers it, and b) if he'll write to me, knowing that Boyfriend wants us to stop.

This, on top of other things, is making me feel alone, miserable, tearful. I wish this would end.

I did something stupid

I've been neglecting my blog for a bit for various reasons. Ive been pre-occupied with the 10km run / walk race Ive entered, which is on Sunday, and whether or not I should register for an Adventure Boot Camp thing that is a month long and will be taking place from 15 January 2006. I have finally decided to register.

Another major issue is that Boyfriend found out that D and I email each other. It was really stupid. Boyfriend's parents are away for the week and we popped in to check for post and do a load of washing. I thought Id check my email to see if there were any comments on my blog. There were'nt. But there was some junk mail that I wanted to delete. Boyfriend sneaked up behind me and pointed at the screen demanding why there was an email from D. I hurriedly closed the screen, a sudden heat rising steadily to my face. It didnt even occur to me that he might sneak up to me (why would he do that?), and it didnt even occur to me that there would be an email from D there. I was just thinking about blog comments. How stupid can I be? So he now knows. And he is very upset because even when he's asked me in the past, Ive said that we dont keep in contact. Its understandable that he's upset. Of course.

But these emails are strictly friendly. We dont speak about feelings or ever try to meet up. The only time we could have met up was on the train before he went overseas, but since we never discussed what carriage he'd be in, it was pretty much up to fate.

Ive emailed D to tell him that Boyfriend knows and that he isnt happy at all, and wants us to stop. He doesnt want to stop of course, because he enjoys it and we have lots in common, but he says that its entirely up to me, and that he has no intention of damaging a relationship. Do I carry on, or do I stop?

I really feel quite miserable about all this. Besides that, I feel restricted. I hate being forced to do or not do something. It just isnt me. So, I am entirely pre-occupied with being miserable right now.

I never knew it would come to this.

The Wiggle Waggle Walkathon presents Killer Cleo

This was an absolute disaster. Instead of a nice, enjoyable 4km walk with the boyfriend's parents dog, along with thousands of other people and their dogs, we ended up pulling out of the walk and going home. All thanks to Cleo, the horrendously socially inapt Staffordshire Bull Terrier, who attacked a large dog, and snapped at the other smaller dogs that came near her.

She was over-excited by all the dogs around her, all the different sounds and smells, and she was breathing so fast and so hard that a sharp wheezing sound came from her chest. Her eyes were wild as she tried to take it all in. Little dogs, the tiny ones, innocently came over to satisfy their natural curiosity, but were met with a lightning quick snap of Cleo's jaws. People screamed and leapt back in terror from the squeals of the unfortunate victims and stared at us as we tried to restrain her.

We went down on our haunches to keep her from launching at other dogs, as well as to keep the other curious dogs away to prevent them from getting mauled.

"Look at that dogs crazy eyes." Someone said in passing.

An old man came over to stroke her, but seemed a tad uncertain of her reaction as he stretched out his hand. I quickly reassured him that it wasnt the people we were worried about, but the other dogs. Only then did he properly let her sniff and lick his hand.

Things got worse as more and more people lined up at the starting line. Dogs were everywhere. Most of them were friendly towards each other, just having a passing sniff of the other's backside as dogs are wont to do. Why was it that every other dog got along fine, while ours wanted to rip apart ever dog she saw? It was hot, so very hot. The heat intensified with everyone crowding close at the start line. Our skin shone and sweat rolled down our backs from the combination of heat and stress.

A woman tapped me on the shoulder asking if she could see the tattoo on my lower back. I was so pre-occupied with trying to hold Cleo still and trying to calm her down that I stared blankly at her before realising what it was that she'd asked, and turning around and lifting up my T-shirt. She proclaimed it to be pretty, and I went back to the arduous task of looking after Cleo.

It seemed like we crouched like that forever, but eventually the walk started, and boyfriend was forced to carry Cleo in his arms. Being a staffie, she is not the lightest of dogs to carry around, unlike some other people who were cradling little daschunds or puppies in their arms. Up in boyfriends arms she seemed perfectly happy. Her rasping breathing settled down, and she panted and looked around with excitement. Why oh why couldnt she just be like that while on the ground, I dont know.

When a space opened up around us (probably due to the reputation Cleo was quickly aquiring), we put her down, but she pulled so hard on her lead that she ended up choking herself. She very clearly wanted to get to the dogs she could smell up ahead. It was ridiculous. She had to be carried again.

"He's carrying the one that goes after everything it sees". Said someone walking behind us.

Im being serious here, these were real, true to life comments people were making. I just cant make that up. It was clear that people in our immediate vicinity had seen or heard all about Cleo's vicious dog-eating habits. I was terrified that she would do something really bad, like attack a dog so badly that it ended up hurt, and that the owner would report us. I imagined a scene where we were publicly disqualified for bringing along a dangerous, anti-social dog on what should be a nice, peaceful mass dog-walk. We decided it was most suitable to carry Cleo instead of risk causing a scene of the likes of my imaginings.

But Boyfriend's arms inevitably grew tired. When they were at breaking point, I remarked that the whole left hand side of the road was open, and that we could possibly walk Cleo on that side. The Marshalls cycling up and down the road on their bicycles didnt think so. I know that Marshall was just trying to do his job, but I cant help but get irritated by how arrogant they can come across. I noticed it in the Big Walk I did last Sunday aswell. And Nightclub Bouncers are the same, if not worse. Give them a little bit of authority and they think they're IT.

Anyway, inevitably we were seen walking on the left hand side of the road, whereas the walk was taking place on the right so that we faced oncoming traffic. Along came the Marshall on his bicycle.

"I need you to walk on the other side of the road please, otherwise the Traffic Department wont allow us to do the walk".

It was a very reasonable request, however our dog was choosing to be highly unreasonable.

We quickly explained Cleo's behaviour around the other dogs. His solution was that we carry her. We explained that thats what we had been doing, but that she was heavy, and we couldnt be expected to carry her for all of 4km.

"Sir, that's not my problem. You need to walk on the other side of the road. You can carry her or make another plan, but you cant walk on this side".

Boyfriend was getting angry.

"My plan is to walk on this side, unless you want her attacking the other dogs!" He growled.

"Well Sir, my plan is to get you to walk on the other side of the road!" The Marshall's tone was dripping with arrogance.

"Would you mind if I just gave my arms a rest?!" Boyfriend shouted back.

Im sure people were staring, but I was too afraid to look. I imagined people sniggering amongst themselves and recounting Cleo's earlier behaviour.

I so badly wanted to shout at the Marshall, "Just pretend we're ordinary people who havent entered this friggin walk, if walking on this side is going to be such a damned problem!!!" But of course I didnt.

I hate confrontation. I really do. And its not often that I see Boyfriend losing it. But he was stressed out by Cleo's laboured breathing and the resultant yelping sounds she kept making. I know that he was thinking about Bleaux (pronounced as Blue), his previous Staffie, who seemed to have died of a heart-attack or a something similar relating to stress. Cleo's excited state, along with the fact that she was refusing to drink the water that so many other dogs had thirstily lapped up or splashed through, was a potential problem should we continue throughout the full 4kms.

With Boyfriend's angry outburst, the Marshall pedalled away, shrugging his shoulders. I had in mind that he would probably only afford us a period of grace before bothering us again.

But we made a decision before he even had the chance to return. We decided to drop out of the walk. It would be useless trying to get Cleo to get along with the other dogs. She would de-hydrate without water, and she was choking herself on her lead. We had never seen her so worked up before. Never before had we heard her struggle for breath the way she was this Sunday afternoon past.

I was disappointed. So, so disappointed. Besides thinking it would be a nice treat for Cleo, I was looking forward to having another chance to excercise, especially since Im trying to get a feel for what kind of distances I can handle. I know its not fair, but I was kind of angry at Cleo herself. She's always such a good natured dog, but somehow seeing all those thousands of dogs put her into killer mode.

So we turned around and made our way back. At the very back, however, we decided to give it another go since there would be no dogs around us, but Cleo continued to choke herself on her lead and we gave up once more. R60 and all I got out of it was a banana that I'd taken at the first watering station. At least the money went to the SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) .

When we dropped Cleo off at Boyfriend's parents place, she ran straight for her water bowl. Clearly she deigned herself to be socially above the other dogs who didnt care where their water came from, or who gave it to them, and happily drank together and shook themselves dry when their owners poured water over them.

She had calmed down dramatically but was still excited, and looked happy and proud of having been taken out on what she probably thought was a big adventure. Little did she know that out of the 4kms she was supposed to complete, she maybe did half a kilometre, maybe even less. Taking that into account, she performed rather pathetically. Pa-thet-ic!! We all told her so, but she wagged her tail happily, thinking we were probably proud of her. Yeah right!!

She also missed out on the little doggy treats and food samples that apparently get handed out along the way.

One thing is for sure though, NEVER AGAIN. At least not with Killer Cleo in tow.

Hopefully our little daschund puppy will have better social decorum when it comes to meeting other dogs. Puppy training school is now a definate, I think.